Following the phenomenal success of Room which saw him pick up an Oscar nomination, it's fair to say Lenny Abrahamson is in demand at the moment.
As we reported earlier this year he's been working on a Hugh Laurie starring TV series for streaming service Hulu, but now he's lining up his next film gig.
The Grand Escape will be an adaptation of a book by Neal Bascomb. The book has yet to be published but that didn't stop heated interest in the movie rights which Element Pictures and Film 4 eventually won out.
The book tells the story of three daredevil fighter pilots captured and held as POWs at Holzminden, one of Germany's most infamous camps at that time. They go on to lead the First World War's greatest mass prison escape in July of 1918, and the narrative also follows their subesquent journey back to Britain via the Netherlands.
Empire are reporting that this will be Abrahamson's next film but the director has said recently on the 'An Irishman Abroad' podcast that he's also working on making a biopic about the boxer Emile Griffith. His comments during the podcast seemed to indicate that the Griffith biopic would be next for him and considering Neal Bascomb's book has yet to be published it would make sense that this would be the case.
One thing that's for certain is that the director will have a full slate for the next few years.
