Pulitzer Prize winner and Tony Award winner Tracy Letts is keeping awfully busy. Not only does he have the film adaptation of his award-winning play August: Osage County coming out this Christmas, a recurring role on Homeland and the Broadway premiere of Killer Joe, now Letts might also take on the film remake of John Steinbeck’s classic The Grapes of Wrath, according to TheWrap.com.
Letts is in negotiations to pen the script for DreamWorks; Steven Spielberg is expected to produce. No director or casting has been announced.
The Grapes of Wrath is set during the Great Depression and follows the Joads, a poor family of farmers making the hard trek from Oklahoma to California in hopes of work and a better life. The 1939 novel was awarded the National Book Prize and the Pulitzer. A 1940 film adaptation won two Academy Awards for Direction (John Ford) and Supporting Actress (Jane Darwell as Ma Joad) and picked up an additional five Oscar nominations.
Letts made history at the 2013 Tony Awards when he became the first Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (for August: Osage County) to win a Best Actor Tony (for his performance as George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). His other plays include Bug, Man from Nebraska and Superior Donuts. He has written screenplays for Bug, Killer Joe and August Osage: County. His notable acting credits include regional productions of Glengarry Glen Ross, Three Days of Rain, The Pillowman, Betrayal and American Buffalo.