Joe Carnahan In Talks For ‘Sugar Bandits’ At Universal

Joe Carnahan has entered negotiations for Sugar Bandits, an adaptation of the Chuck Hogan novel Devils in Exile, according to a Tuesday report from The Hollywood Reporter.

The website noted that Carnahan would, of course, direct and Hogan would be screenwriter for a story, which centers on Iraq War vet Neal Maven and his scheme to rip off drug dealers.

Maven, facing a go-nowhere job, teams with other soldiers to target a batch of Boston pushers, destroy their wares, and confiscate their money. Scribner published the book in 2010.

Carnahan’s relevant work experience for this project would include Narc and (technically) Smokin’ Aces, though the latter is more goofball than what we’re used to seeing from the grit of Hogan’s work, which includes The Town — later adapted by Ben Affleck as a superior crime-drama.

Joe Carnahan last scored with The Grey, a tense and horrific adventure drama starring Liam Neeson and Dermot Mulroney as two of seven men trying to brave the Alaska wilderness after a plane crash. Dogging their way is a pack of bloodthirsty wolves, waiting and watching for the right time to pounce.

The 2012 thriller was a rugged exercise in suspense that managed to pull a 79 percent from Rotten Tomatoes even with 188 ratings, thus giving some hope that Carnahan can produce a movie that is less The A-Team, which got a lot of mileage out of how closely the characters resembled their TV originals, and more The Town.

As long as there are no hilariously awful falling tank battles, nor flight navigation by cannon blast, we should be okay.

Landing Sugar Bandits should be a satisfying win for the director as he’s been losing projects of late, first the Daredevil reboot and lastly the Death Wish remake.

Here’s hoping he brings the A-game. (Again, not A-Team. We don’t need to see that again.)

Will you be checking out the Joe Carnahan directed Sugar Bandits?

[Image via Featureflash / Shutterstock.com]