Harvey Weinstein Signs on to Produce August: Osage County Feature Film

The Weinstein Co. has acquired worldwide film rights to Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play August: Osage County, according to Variety. Co-chairman Harvey Weinstein will join Jean Doumanian and Steve Traxler as producers of a feature film adaptation, with Letts as screenwriter. Weinstein said his company will fully finance and distribute the film with an eye toward a 2011 release. No casting has been set.

“I’ve loved the writing since I was given a 240-page script for a three-hour play that starred nobody, that had no workshop,” Weinstein, an investor in the Broadway production of August: Osage County, told Variety. “My reaction was similar to the feeling I had when I read Quentin Tarantino’s script for True Romance. Tracy has that kind of voice.” Weinstein is currently in production with Rob Marshall’s film version of the Tony-winning musical Nine. 

Initial plans for a feature film version of August produced by Doumanian and Traxler were announced on August 6, with Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel serving as executive producers. Doumanian told Variety she hopes to have Letts’ screenplay within two or three months. While continuing its run at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre, August: Osage County will begin an eight-week engagement at London’s National Theater on November 21.