A couple of years ago, in my Crimespree column, I wrote about Hugh Jackman’s production company acquiring the rights to the James Sallis novella DRIVE.
Hugh Jackman’s production company, Seed Productions, has purchased the film rights to James Sallis’s novella Drive.
Jackman is planning on starring as well. The actor is still looking to break out as a star in his own right. While he has been very successful as Wolverine, a portion of that has to be credited to the popularity of both the source comic The X-Men, as well as that of the character itself. Drive could very well be the vehicle (bad pun) to take him to the next level.
Drive is a dark tale set in Southern California and Arizona, and centers on a stuntman who is also a wheelman during robberies. Things get really crazy when he discovers that a hit has been put on him.
DRIVE originally was a short story in McMillan anthology Measures of Poison. Sallis later fleshed out the tale and turned it into a novella, which was published by Poison Pen Press.

As I said, that was almost two years ago. Finally, there is some forward movement on it:
Variety is reporting that Neil Marshall has signed on to direct Drive.
Marshall gained a fair amount of praise for his horror film The Descent and has signed on for the upcoming revival of Sherlock Holmes.
Hossein Amini is handling the screenwriting duties. Amini previously wrote the adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Killshot as well as The Four Feathers.
Post Note:
I want to thank Valerie for pointing out that I mentioned John Sallis in the first paragraph when I meant James. They are two different people. This is what happens when you write in the morning prior to drinking coffee.