David Lindsay-Abaire To Write 'The Family Fang' For Nicole Kidman & 'Rabbit Hole' Producers

2010 certainly wasn’t a lackluster year for film, perhaps that’s why “Shortbus” helmer John Cameron Mitchell’s emotionally gripping “Rabbit Hole” was seemingly swept aside. Telling the story of a grieving couple coming to terms after their young son dies in a horrific accident, it was a heartbreaking tale that we liked quite a bit, and so we were pleased to hear last February that Kidman would be teaming up again with “Rabbit Hole” producers for the familial comedy-drama “The Family Fang.” Now it looks as if producers are hoping to add a little more of what made their previous film work so well, in the form of a script by “Rabbit Hole” playwright and screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire.

Deadline is reporting that Lindsay-Abaire will be taking up writing duties on “The Family Fang,” the adaptation of the Kevin Wilson bestseller which follows a couple of performance artists who regularly use their children as part of their bizarre acts during their formative years. In this very “The Royal Tenenbaums”-sounding tale, when the now fully-grown children return home at the height of a family crisis, they are once again recruited to help in the dangerous execution of a mysterious final performance by their parents, looking to end their lives on a high note. Resentment and familial drama runs rampant in the story that Kidman will be producing through her Blossom Films banner along with “Rabbit Hole” co-producers Olympus Pictures’ Leslie Urdang and Dean Vanech, who were also behind Mike Mills’ excellent “Beginners.”

Lindsay-Abaire is starting to become a precious commodity in Hollywood. He's penned the Sam Raimi-produced remake of “Poltergeist” that made some waves a couple weeks back, and he wrote new BFF Raimi’s promising future blockbuster for Disney “Oz: The Great and Powerful,” but he was also recently Tony-nominated for his play “Good People” along with DreamWorks’ “Shrek The Musical.” Additionally, he scripted the star-studded animated film “Rise Of The Guardians” from William Joyce’s book for DreamWorks, proving that this Pulitzer prize-winning writer is well on his way to Hollywood fortunes.

We’re excited to see the pair reconnect, but we'll have to wait and see when Kidman will have the time for this. Next week she heads to Cannes where both the Philip Kaufman-directed “Hemingway & Gelhorn” and Lee Daniels' "The Paperboy" will premiere. Later this year, she stars in “Oldboy” helmer Park Chan-Wook’s “Stoker,” and she's currently filming “The Railway Man” with Colin Firth, so yeah, her schedule is packed. Also, we’re guessing Lindsay-Abaire still has to get started on that screenplay, but if “The Family Fang” scales the same heights of quality that “Rabbit Hole” did, the wait should be worth it.