From True Detective to The Black Count

We've just learned that Cary Fukunaga, the visionary director who gave us True Detective, has signed on to adapt and direct The Black Count, the Pulitzer prize winning biography of the real Count of Monte Cristo. Written by Tom Reiss the book chronicles 
the life of Alex Dumas, the father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas.

Born to a black slave mother and a fugitive white French nobleman in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), Alex Dumas was briefly sold into bondage but then made his way to Paris where he was schooled as a sword-fighting member of the French aristocracy. 

The exploits of Dumas, the elder were the basis for the son's classic novels The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas became the highest-ranking person of color to ever serve in any European army. A favorite of Napoleon for a time, Dumas was also the first non-white to become a brigadier general in the French military. 

Fukunaga is teaming with John Legend, I can only assume Legend who is producing would play the key role? Agree? Known mostly as a singer/songwriter - Legend has a music credit for Crazy Stupid Love - he's also been dabbling in the world of acting.

John Legend center with Bernie Mac (L) and Samuel L. Jackson (R) in Soul Men 2008

Fukunaga is in high demand following True Detective's break out first season.  The writer/directer is heading to Ghana next month to start production on Beasts of No Nation, an adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala’s bestselling novel and starring Idris Elba.

Fukunaga has also signed on to direct an adaptation of The Noble Assassin, an unpublished novel by Paul Kix about "French aristocrat-turned-anti-Nazi-saboteur Robert de la Rochefoucauld, who joined the British Special Operations Executive and was trained in every manner of dark arts before being sent back to France to help organize the resistance, blowing up train stations and munitions factories. In the process, he was caught, endured months of torture and escaped his own execution."

The writer/director also has the long awaited two part adaptation of Stephen King's IT in the works.