Robert Ludlum has brought Universal Pictures a lot of money. The Matt Damon-starring Bourne trilogy brought in over half-a-billion dollars domestically - each movie averaging $175 million - and production has already begun on The Bourne Legacy, starring Jeremy Renner. But why stop there? Ludlum wrote many other books outside of the Bourne universe and now Universal, in conjunction with Captivate Entertainment and Ludlum Entertainment, are putting together another movie based on one of his stories.
According to Deadline, the three companies are now working together to bring The Janson Directive to the big screen. John Hlavin, whose previous credits include two epsiodes of The Shield and the upcoming Underworld Awakening, has been hired to write the script. The book was one of five to be published after Ludlum's death in 2001. The central character is a man named Paul Janson, a Vietnam Vet who served as a Navy SEAL and was part of a covert government group called Consular Operations. Haunted by memories, he is hired as a corporate security consultant, but when a job goes wrong he finds a target on his back and the need to uncover a major scandal before it's too late.
In addition to Bourne and The Janson Directive, Universal also has other Ludlum adaptations in the works, including he Parsifal Mosaic (with Ron Howard attached to direct) and The Sigma Protocol. Another Ludlum adaptation, The Osterman Weekend, is currently set up over at Summit Entertainment. Don't be surprised if in 20 years every single book by Robert Ludlum has a movie adaptation as well.
