Warner Bros. have picked up the rights to the true crime novel Tokyo Underworld: The Fast and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan and set Frank Baldwin to adapt.
Baldwin is currently writing Phillip Noyce’s future project The Art of Making Money and has no other known credits, future or past.
Published in 2000, the book centers on Nick Zappetti, an Italian-American from East Harlem who was part of the U.S. occupation forces sent to Japan after World War II. Believing that Tokyo offered certain opportunities, Zappetti had a failed stint as a wrestler, participated in a fumbled diamond heist and was deported. But he returned illegally and opened a pizza joint, which in the mid-’60s became the center of Tokyo’s nightlife, and for the next 15 years, he became an integral part in the yakuza’s rise to power.
Warners picked up the book when the option at Dreamworks had expired.
source – the hollywood reporter
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[...] (2004), a sequel, examines the impact of Japanese players in the United States. “Tokyo Underworld” (2000) is being made in to a feature film by Warner Brothers, directed by Martin Scorsese. [...]