David Fincher To Produce Biopic Of Great Depression-Era Photographer Dorothea Lange

While David Fincher remains hard at work wrapping up one of the most promising remakes in recent years, he’s also found the time to jump on board a biopic behind the scenes that will surely benefit from his guidance.

Variety reports that the as-of-yet untitled film is set to recount the life of Dorothea Lange, a photographer responsible for arguably the best known image to come out of The Great Depression (see above). Stricken with polio at an early age, Lange recovered (though was left with a permanent limp) and went on to produce monumental photos that boiled down the statistics of the depression into memorable, often heart wrenching images. Her work is often cited as having put a human face on The Great Depression, and her photographs of farmers in particular are said to have played a major influence on John Steinbeck‘s “The Grapes Of Wrath.”

Documentarian and photographer Leslie Dektor will direct from a script by Angela Workman, who most recently co-wrote Wayne Wang‘s adaptation of Lisa See‘s novel “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan“. Workman has also adapted a non-fiction book, Diane Ackerman‘s World War II Polish-zoo set “The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story ” which as far we know, is not a prequel to the Kevin James movie.

“Get Low” executive producer David B. Ginsberg will produce and Fincher is set to exec produce. Whether he will let his presence be known or just keep a lookout from the sidelines remains to be seen, but seeing as he rarely hands out producing credits on films, we’d wager he’ll be hands on. Prior to this, he’s only put his namesake on (somewhat inexplicably) the Brittany Murphy movie “Love And Other Disasters,” “Lords Of Dogtown” and those “The Hire” commercials/movies for BMW. Earlier this year, his first move to television was announced as he’s teamed with Kevin Spacey to produce “House Of Cards” though Fincher will likely get behind the camera for the pilot episode.