Cary Fukunaga’s WWII Drama Taps ‘Assassin’s Creed’ Writing Duo

Cary Fukunaga has been keeping rather busy since parting ways with New Line on his adaptation of Stephen King’s It. In addition to directing the dark comedic miniseries Maniac for Netflix, Fukunaga is developing his next feature film project, which takes the Beasts of No Nation director back to war — World War II, to be exact — for The Noble Assassin. And he’s just secured a couple of screenwriters who know a bit about that whole assassin thing.

Per Variety, Assassin’s Creed scribes Adam Cooper and Bill Collage have been tapped to write the screenplay for The Noble Assassin, based on the upcoming novel by Paul Kix. The story takes place during World War II and centers on a French aristocrat who is trained by the British Special Operations Executive to become a skilled saboteur capable of aiding in the fight against the Nazis.

Kix’s novel won’t be released until February 9, 2017, but DreamWorks optioned the rights to the author’s original proposal back in 2013, setting Fukunaga to direct from a screenplay by Scott Silver (The Fighter) shortly thereafter.

Fukunaga’s last film was Beasts of No Nation, the fictional African war drama that premiered on Netflix. The director is re-teaming with the streaming service for Maniac, a dark comedy project based on a 2014 Norwegian dark comedy series, with Emma Stone and Jonah Hill attached to star. Fukunaga will helm all 10 episodes, with initial reports suggesting that Netflix was eyeing an additional season — though it doesn’t seem likely that Fukunaga, Stone and Hill would stick around for that long.