Screenwriter Steven Knight Flies into the Directors’ chair with ‘Hummingbird’

Almost a decade after his screenplay for Dirty Pretty Things put him on the map, British scribe Steven Knight is leaving the laptop and is getting behind the camera to direct his first feature film. Deadline reports that the Oscar nominated screenwriter will be directing the upcoming thriller Hummingbird, from a script that (you guessed it) he wrote. Best known for penning scripts containing dark and violent subject matter (Eastern Promises), Knight’s directorial debut is backed by Shine Pictures and New Regency will be behind the financing. The project is set to begin shooting next fall, so we can look forward to casting updates in the very near future.

Gist: The thriller follows a damaged ex-Special Forces soldier who finds himself trapped in the criminal underworld and assumes another man’s identity to exact revenge.

Worth Noting: Just because he’s moonlighting as a director doesn’t mean that Knight’s done with writing. The screenwriter has plenty of projects slated to hit theatres in the next couple of years including the Bobby Fischer biopic Pawn Sacrifice, a sequel to Eastern Promises and the much buzzed about adaptation of Dan Brown’s latest novel The Lost Symbol.

Do We Care?: If we look at his body of work, Knight has proven himself a capable writer, so we can assume that this film will start off with the right bones: a solid script. It should also be known that Knight isn’t completely unfamiliar with the directing game. He had some practice behind the camera in the mid 90s directing a few episodes of the British TV series The Detectives. But will his few directorial credits be enough to make the transition from scribe to shot-caller? Many have tried; few have really succeeded. However, with his style of writing and what (little) we know so far of the story, it looks like Knight’s going to be taking us on yet another suspense-filled ride.