Lifetime is getting into the Bobby Durst business, Deadline reports. After a feature film, a documentary series, and a cameo on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the allegedly homicidal heir will get another chance to captivate the nation. Lifetime has optioned Matt Birkbeck’s book A Deadly Secret: The Bizarre and Chilling Story of Robert Durst, which, under its original title A Deadly Secret: The Strange Disappearance of Kathie Durst, was one of the books found at Durst’s Houston apartment when police searched it in 2015. (Actually, it was technically two of the books: Durst had both the 2002 hardcover edition and the 2003 paperback.)
Lifetime’s got the 2015 edition, which includes updates on Durst’s activities since 2003. Bettina Gilois, who co-wrote Glory Road, McFarland, USA, and Bessie, will write the script; Linda Berman is producing. According to Deadline, the film will “tell the troubling story of Robert Durst through the eyes and relationship of his wife, Kathy Durst,” which raises some narrative questions, since Kathy disappeared in 1982, and presumably has very little to say about post-1982 developments.
The film is as-yet untitled; A Deadly Secret would fit right in with the other Lifetime films, but has probably been ruled out because of Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell’s perfectly-titled Lifetime movie A Deadly Adoption. Will it ultimately be called The Burping Butcher? The Deadliest Durst? Not Without My Chicken Salad Sandwich? As the nation anxiously waits for the title, it’s reassuring to know that America’s favorite alleged multiple murderer has landed at Lifetime, a network that excels with this sort of bleak material: In 2014 they drove the entire nation to existential despair with the chilling docudrama Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever.
