After offering us such fine films as American Beauty, Revolutionary Road and Away We Go, Mendes will be directing the Western called Butcher’s Crossing.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be an adaptation of the John E. Williams novel of the same name. The book, which was published in 1960, will be adapted for the screen by Joe Penhall (The Road).
The action takes place in 1870 when a young man leaves his studies at Harvard and settles in a small Kansas town. There, he will take up communion living in the wilderness.
This will be a whole new world for Mendes, who will also co-produce the project with his partners at Neal Street Productions, Pippa Harris and Caro Newling. Gabe and Alan Polsky of Polsky films are also on board to produce. Butcher’s Crossing is scheduled to hit theatres in 2011.
Other Sam Mendes projects that will soon be in theatres are Preacher and Middlemarch, both to be out in 2011, and Netherland, slated for a 2013 release.