Lee Daniels has been tapped to direct the big-screen adaptation of Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Broadway play, Anna in the Tropics. As if the 2003 Pulitzer win for the play, the Tony nominations for the play, and Daniels’s Oscar nomination for Precious don’t make this production highbrow enough already, Anna is also inspired by Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. More specifically, the story is set in twenties Tampa, centering on a Cuban family of cigar rollers. Production begins in January, but expectations (high ones, outrage, etc.) begin now. [HR]
