The first project in the pipeline from the just-announced Michael Mann Books is a new novel by Don Winslow. The Cartel author will co-write the novel, with Mann, about the American mobsters Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana.
Deadline announced earlier this week that Mann, who is known for making such films as Heat and The Insider, will be getting into the book business with a planned line of titles that will bear his name. The line is currently being shopped, by Los-Angeles based agency the Story Factory, to publishing houses, where it's presumed it will be packaged and sold as an imprint. New works generated through the line will be done so with an eye towards Hollywood, as it's intended that they will serve as a template for future projects directed, and/or produced, by Mann.
In a release, the Story Factory, which also represents Winslow, said a possible film based on the forthcoming novel will also be based on a "preexisting screenplay" Mann wrote about the Chicago mafia duo. (The other author of the screenplay is the Story Factory founder, and screenwriter, Shane Salerno.)
According to the Story Factory, Accardo, who mentored Giancana, was a notable figure in one of Chicago's most powerful organized crime families for nearly 80 years. Giancana, the agency said, elevated the Chicago crime family's work "onto the New Frontier with bold moves that converged national commerce and industry with politics, Vegas, the music industry, Hollywood, and co-ventures with the CIA." Giancana was murdered in 1975.
Mann has already acquired the rights to various material from the Accardo family. Despite the fact that the Winslow-Mann novel has not yet been sold--the Story Factory said "discussions" with potential publishers will "begin shortly"--a publication date has been set. The Story Factory said it wants to see the book published in 2017.
As for the Mann book line, it does not yet have a home either. Set up as an incubator for stories that Mann can shape--from book conception through to film/TV development--it's thought that news about which publisher will house the line will be revealed shortly.
The Michael Mann Books imprint is represented the by Story Factory's Salerno (who drew headlines last year for the deal he landed for thriller author Steve Hamilton), while Mann himself is also represented by CAA and attorney Harold Brown.
NOTE: This story has been edited to clarify the status of Michael Mann's planned publishing venture.
