Switch - Jackie Brown prequel

Over a year and a half ago there came word that a prequel to Jackie Brown (which was based on Elmore Leonard's novel Rum Punch) was being crafted as an adaptation of the novel Switch, a story which deals with younger versions of Robert DeNiro and Samuel L. Jackson's characters Louis Gara and Ordell Robbie. While director Quentin Tarantino wouldn't be involved with the prequel, he did give the project his blessing, and I think we're all going to be glad he did as Variety reports Sundance King John Hawkes (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Winter's Bone) will star in the film with Mos Def, or Yasiin Bey as he's now known.

The film is in the hands of writer/director Dan Schecther (Supporting Characters) which takes place 15 years before the events of Jackie Brown and follows Ordell and Louis as they team up to kidnap Mickey Dawson, the wife of a corrupt Detroit real estate developer. When the husband refuses to pay the ransom for his wife's return, the ex-cons are forced to reconceive their plan, and the angry housewife uses the duo to get her revenge. Def/Bey just finished up a great guest arc on the last season of "Dexter" and Hawkes is fresh off a buzzed about performance from The Surrogate at Sundance last month. Both are perfect choices to fit into DeNiro and Jackson's shoes, but I'm more interested in seeing what Schecther does with this high profile project. What's cool about the filmmaker is he wrote the script on spec without permissions from the author and both Leonard and producer Michael Siegel just loved his work. That's pretty bad-ass.