EXCLUSIVE: Brian Oliver’s Cross Creek Pictures has hired Inside Man screenwriter Russell Gewirtz to write Black Mass, a $35m project about the unholy alliance between the FBI and the Boston mob.

Oliver, whose Black Swan crossed $300m worldwide at the weekend, is eyeing an autumn start in Boston and will produce with colleague Todd Thompson alongside Brett Granstaff of Ridgerock Entertainment Group.

Black Mass is based on a previous script by Mark Mallouk and the book of the same name by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill. Mallouk will serve as an executive producer.

The tome investigated the connection between the FBI and former mob turned informant Whitey Bulger, who is on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list.

CAA represented Gewirtz in the deal.

Cross Creek financed Black Swan, the upcoming George Clooney political drama The Ides Of March and The Woman In Black, which was recently picked up for the US by CBS Films.

The company currently has more than ten projects in development including the comedy Bathing Suits, a Steve McQueen biopic written by James Gray to star Jeremy Renner, crime drama Delivering Gen and the untitled Colin Firth and Emily Blunt project that Focus Features International is selling.