It has been announced that two-time Academy Award-winner Christoph Waltz is attached to play the lead in “True Crimes”, a film based on David Grann’s 2008 New Yorker feature. The story centers on a cold case that baffled the Polish police for years. A man named Dariusz Janiszewski was found dead in the Ode River in Poland in December 2000. The investigation lasted for six months beforerunning cold and was left unsolved; the murder was considered the perfect crime. That is, until  police officer Jacek Wroblewski (Waltz) reopened the case and made a connection between the victim and Polish  intellectual/writer Krystian Bala, whose novel Amok detailed a murder strikingly similar to the murder in the case. As Wroblewski investigated, he found himself becoming  “entangled in the dark underworld of Poland’s sex rings, prostitution and drugs.”

It is said that the film will be taking on a Girl with the Dragon Tattoo vibe as a gritty European thriller. The script was written by Jeremy Brock, who has already had experience adapting real-life events for the screen with his work on The Last King of Scotland.   A director has yet to be announced officially, but it seems that Roman Polanski has been eyeing the project since the wrap of his film Carnage in 2011, which coincidentally featured Waltz. Unlike his roles in Tarantino’s films Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, both of which earned him the Oscars, it has been speculated that Waltz’s role in True Crimes will offer the actor a chance to showcase a more subtle, restrained persona.