Stiller to Play Mailer

Several sources have announced Andrew Haigh’s next project will be a film based on Mailer’s relationship with Jack Henry Abbott based on the latter’s 1981 novel In the Belly of the Beast. Coming Soon states:

[Ben] Stiller will play Mailer in Haigh’s movie, while [Collin] Farrell will play Abbott. Haigh and Alexis Jolly wrote the script, which is based on a 2017 novel — Jack and Norman: A State-Raised Convict and the Legacy of Norman Mailer’s “The Executioner’s Song” — written by Jerome Loving that details Mailer and Abbot’s relationship.

And, according to World of Reel:

The film will tackle Mailer, an iconic writer, in his 50s, at the height of his influence. In 1977, Mailer started a correspondence with brilliant and self-educated prisoner Jack Henry Abbot [sic], taking him under his wing and helping him get parole and setting up shop for a book deal.