David Mamet Will Adapt Anne Frank Story for Film

The January offices were closed for summer fun last week when the story broke that Pulitzer prize-winning playwright David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow) had been annointed by Disney (of all outfits) to write and direct The Diary of Anne Frank. The Guardian explains the book for the six people who might not be familiar with the work:

The Diary of Anne Frank records the teenager's experiences over 25 months while hiding out with her family in a secret annexe in a canalside warehouse in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. It became an international bestseller and made her an icon of the Holocaust when it was published in 1947, two years after she died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. It has been translated into 60 languages and has sold more than 25m copies worldwide.

Because Mamet is not known for his delicacy and because the pairing seems odd on so many levels, spoofs of what Mamet’s script might look like are already beginning to surface. Here’s one from The Independent (scroll down). Another from The Village Voice. We’ll have to wait a while to see how far -- or not -- off the mark these jokesters were, though: the film is expected to be released in 2011.