Variety reports that TWC has acquired the worldwide film rights for the award-winning play and will fully finance and distribute the motion picture. Producers of the film, which is currently scheduled for a 2011 release, include Harvey Weinstein, Jean Doumanian and Steve Traxler.
As previously announced, Letts will pen the screenplay for the film. Doumanian told the industry paper she expects to have Letts' screenplay within the next few months.
Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel, who produced the Broadway run with Doumanian and Traxler, will be the executive producers of the August: Osage County film.
Harvey Weinstein, who is also one of the producers of the Broadway production, told Variety, "I've loved the writing since I was given a 240-page script for a three-hour play that starred nobody, that had no workshop. . . .My reaction was similar to the feeling I had when I read Quentin Tarantino's script for 'True Romance.' Tracy has that kind of voice."
Directed by Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award winner Anna D. Shapiro, Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County is the "explosively funny comedy-drama focusing on the Weston family following the disappearance of the family's patriarch."
A national tour will launch in summer 2009. The Shapiro-directed London production begins Nov. 21 at the National Theatre, with many of its original cast members.