EXCLUSIVE: Yorgos Lanthimos is set to write and direct Pop. 1280, an adaptation of the Jim Thompson crime novel for Imperative Entertainment. Element Pictures will produce with Imperative and Lanthimos, in association with Discovery Productions.

Project is high priority. Lanthimos’ The Favourite is up for 10 Oscars this weekend, including Best Picture, and it just won seven of the 12 BATFA Awards for which it was nominated.

Thompson published the novel in 1964. A corrupt sheriff of a small town manipulates the people in his orbit in order to win the next election. The nasty romp has long been a favorite of the director.

Little Brown

Andrew Lowe and Ed Guiney of Element Pictures, Lanthimos, Ryan Friedkin of Imperative Entertainment and John Alan Simon of Discovery Productions will produce. Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas of Imperative Entertainment, Micah Green and Dan Steinman of 30WEST, Elizabeth Karr of Discovery Productions, Ilene Feldman, and Jon Levin will be executive producers.

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Pop. 1280 will mark the fourth film for Lanthimos’ fourth film with Element’s Andrew Lowe and Ed Guiney, after Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster and The Favourite. They were also in the Oscar hunt several years ago for Room.

Among Thompson’s adapted novels are two version of The Getaway from directors Sam Peckinpah and later Roger Donaldson, the Stephen Frears-directed The Grifters, After Dark, My Sweet and The Killer Inside Me. Thompson collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the scripts for The Killing, and Paths of Glory. Pop.1280 was also the basis for the 1981 Bertrand Tavernier-directed French-language film, Coup de Torchon, Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Film.

Imperative is coming off the Palme d’Or-winner The Square, the Clint Eastwood-directed The Mule, and the Oscar nominated Ridley Scott-directed All The Money In The World. Next up is on Killers of the Flower Moon for Martin Scorsese to direct Leonardo DiCaprio, based on the David Grann book that was adapted by Eric Roth.

30WEST will arrange the financing and distribution for the project.

Lanthimos is repped by CAA, Ilene Feldman Management, and Sayle Screen in the UK; Discovery Productions and Simon are represented by attorney Lawrence Kopeikin of Morris Yorn and manager Jon Levin of Fourward; Imperative’s dealmaking was done by Jessica Kantor.