Rourke to play 'Ice Man' Kuklinski for Natural Selection

WME’s Graham Taylor is representing North American rights to the project, based on the life of Richard ‘The Ice Man’ Kuklinski, who for more than 40 years led a double life as a professional assassin and a doting husband and father in suburban New Jersey.

David McKenna (American History X and Blow) is adapting the screenplay from Philip Carlo’s book. Natural Selection is fully financing and CEO Matty Beckerman will produce.

“Richard Kuklinski’s life and Philip Carlo’s true account, three years in the making, is fascinating and unlike any mafia story that’s been brought to the big screen,” Beckerman said. “This is a role Mickey Rourke was born to play and as a huge fan of David McKenna’s work, I am thrilled to have him on board.”

Natural Selection is currently in post-production on Isolation, directed by Stephen T Kay starring Eva Amurri as a young medical student who awakens in a hospital isolation room exposed to an unknown disease, desperately ill and with no recollection of how she got there.