John Patrick Shanley to Write and Direct Big Screen Doubt

Playwright John Patrick Shanley will write and direct a big screen version of Doubt, the drama that won him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the Tony Award for Best Play. According to Variety, Scott Rudin will produce the film, set to start filming in late 2007, with Miramax.

After premiering at Manhattan Theater Club, Doubt opened at the Walter Kerr Theatre on March 31, 2005. Set at a Catholic school in the Bronx, it centers on a nun who grows suspicious when a priest begins taking too much interest in the life of a young black student. Is she being overly protective or not protective enough? And can she work within the system to discover the truth? Doug Hughes directed the Broadway production of Doubt, which closed on July 2, 2006 after 525 performances.

Shanley has said that he will expand the play, which had just four roles, and will add characters, including the talked-about black student as well as other classmates. Doubt will be filmed in New York City. Shanley's only other screen directing credit is 1990's Joe Versus the Volcano, which he also wrote.

The Broadway production of Doubt featured Cherry Jones who won a Tony Award playing Sister Aloysius and is currently headlining the national tour of the show, Brían F. O'Byrne, Heather Goldenhersh and Adriane Lenox who also won a Tony as the mother of the student-in-question. Eileen Atkins, Ron Eldard and Jena Malone joined Lenox in the Broadway production for the final six months of the run. No casting has been announced for the film.

Doubt is expected to arrive in movie theaters in 2008.