Roman Polanski and Olivier Assayas are teaming up to make an adaptation of Based on a True Story, Delphine de Vigan’s novel about a writer struggling to complete a new book after suffering the unwanted attentions of an obsessive fan.
Assayas, writer and director of Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper, will script the film, while Polanski will direct, according to AlloCine. De Vigan, a bestselling author in France, has described the story as one that questions the reader’s relationship with fiction.
Polanski, whose 2010 thriller The Ghost Writer covered similar territory, is also making a drama about the Dreyfus affair called D. That film will focus on the 1894 scandal involving a Jewish officer of the French army who was convicted of passing secrets to the Germans. It will be written by Robert Harris, the screenwriter of The Ghost Writer and author of The Ghost, on which it was based.
Polanski is awaiting the decision of a Polish court over an appeal against a decision not to extradite him to the US to face child sex charges dating back to 1977. His victim, Samantha Geimer, welcomed the court’s initial decision not to force him back to the US. She has called the legal battle over the charges a “travesty”.
