Affleck and Lehane

From Lee Goldberg's A Writer's Life:

Gone Baby Gone

Variety reports that Ben Affleck will write and direct, but not act in, a feature film adaptation of Dennis Lehane's book GONE BABY GONE. The movie, which will be released by Disney, will shoot in Boston this fall and could be the start of a "franchise." The book is one of a series that Lehane, back before MYSTIC RIVER, wrote about a team of private eyes.

GONE, BABY, GONE was IMO the most harrowing of Lehane's five Kenzie/Gennaro books. It probably would make the best movie, and maybe Affleck will have better luck behind the camera than he's had in front of it. Here's hoping.

UPDATE - A few more details posted IMDb for March 23, 2005:

Affleck To Make Directorial Debut

Hollywood actor Ben Affleck will move behind the camera, after signing up to make his directorial debut. The Gigli star will helm the adaptation of the novel Gone, Baby, Gone, written by Mystic River author Dennis Lehane. The film will follow two private detectives in a working-class Boston, Massachusetts, neighborhood who are hired to search for a kidnapped four-year-old girl. Affleck, who most recently appeared onscreen in Surviving Christmas, will not appear in the movie, and will start shooting in Boston, where he grew up, in the autumn.