Spike Lee is returning to a WWII setting, picking up the rights to Brendan Koerner’s manhunt tale “Now the Hell Will Start” for his 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks to produce, reports Variety.
The nonfiction thriller, subtitled “One Soldier’s Flight From the Greatest Manhunt of World War II,” recounts the story of an African-American soldier who murdered his lieutenant and then fled into the Burmese jungle.
The book uses the soldier’s story to explore how the U.S. military considered African-Americans unfit for combat and shipped thousands to India in 1944 to build the Ledo Road, a 500-mile project that extended through mountains into China.
Penguin Press published the book last year. It’s the first from Koerner, a contributing editor for Wired magazine and columnist for the New York Times and Slate magazine.
