Coen Brothers to Write Internet Thriller 'Dark Web' for Fox (Exclusive)

Joel and Ethan Coen , now directing the Hollywood satire Hail, Caesar!, do everything together — write and direct, collect four Oscars (for Fargo and No Country for Old Men) and win the Palme d’Or (Barton Fink) and Grand Prix (Inside Llewyn Davis) at Cannes. So these two voices of experience (Joel is 60; Ethan, 57) naturally are jointly serving as Cannes jury president, a role that never before has been shared. The vaunted idiosyncratic Coen sensibility could bode well for independent-minded auteurs such as France’s Jacques Audiard and Greece’s Yorgos Lanthimos .

The pair's involvement adds a boost to the film about Ross William Ulbricht, who built a global drug bazaar called "The Silk Road" and became a murderous kingpin in the process.

Joel and Ethan Coen are logging on to the Fox thriller Dark Web.

Fox has enlisted the Oscar winners to pen the screenplay for the Chernin Entertainment-produced film, formerly titled Silk Road.

The project, which is based on a two-part Wired magazine article by Joshuah Bearman, was set up in 2013, with best-selling author Dennis Lehane taking the first crack at the screenplay. The true story centers on a 29-year-old idealist named Ross William Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) who built an online illegal-drug marketplace called "The Silk Road" and along the way allegedly became a murderous kingpin.

The story, with its labyrinthine twists, was once described as Coen brothers-esque for its similarities to Fargo.

The Coen brothers, who most recently wrote and directed Hail, Caesar!, won screenplay Oscars for No Country for Old Men and Fargo. But the pair also are known to take on scripts for projects they won't direct, as was the case with the Angelina Jolie-helmed Unbroken and Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies. The pair also wrote the upcoming George Clooney-helmed Suburbicon.

They are repped by UTA.

Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping also are producing alongside Joshua Davis and Bearman.