‘ROBOCOP’ DIRECTOR IN TALKS FOR ‘THE BROTHERHOOD’ AT WARNER BROS.

Brazilian filmmaker Jose Padilha would helm the true-crime thriller, an adaptation of the acclaimed book “The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia.”

Brazilian filmmaker Jose Padilha broke out onto the world stage with his gritty Elite Squad crime movies, then nabbed a coveted gig directing MGM’s remake of RoboCop.

Now the director is setting the stage for his next studio project: a crime movie at Warner Bros.

Padilha is in negotiations to direct The Brotherhood, an adaptation of the book The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia, written by Guy Lawson and William Oldham. Dan Lin is producing.

Reading almost like a true-life variation of the Martin Scorsese film The Departed, the book revolves around two corrupt detectives, one working surreptitiously for the Luchese crime family, the other for the Gambino family. For years the men threw cases, scrapped evidence and even killed.

Oldham is the third point in the story, a detective who spent more than seven years tracking the men, eventually bringing them to justice in a sensational trial.

The book was well reviewed, with many singling out the great characters who populate the story.

Bill Dubuque, who also worked on Warners’ Robert Downey Jr. dramedy The Judge, which is in preproduction, wrote the script.
Mark Bauch, who brought the book into Lin Pics, is co-producing.
The material seems tailor-made for Padilha, whose Elite Squad movies were complex and compelling crime dramas filled with corruption, office politics and action pieces. Elite Squad won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival, while its 2010 sequel, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, broke Brazilian records set by movies like Avatar.

Padilha’s RoboCop is set for a Feb. 7, 2014, release.

He is repped by CAA and Cowan DeBaets.