William Faulkner novel dusted off for big screen

By Gregg Goldstein and Steven Zeitchik

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - William Faulkner's suspense novel "Intruder in the Dust" is returning to the big screen, more than 40 years after the first adaptation of his story about crime and bigotry in rural Mississippi.

The Nobel Prize-winning author's novel focuses on a black man falsely accused of shooting a white neighbor in the back. The imprisoned man must stave off a lynch mob with the help of an unlikely band of locals who search for the evidence that will prove his innocence.

"Dust" was first brought to the big screen by director Clarence Brown for MGM in 1949. Production on the new project, by Picture Entertainment and Plum Pictures, is expected to begin in 2009.

Other film adaptations of Faulkner's works include 1958's "The Long, Hot Summer," 1959's "The Sound and the Fury" and the upcoming short "Red Leaves" from actor/director James Franco.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter