WELL before last week’s verdict finding Sante and Kenneth Kimes guilty of swindling and murdering an elderly millionairess, showbiz types were circling around the true-life Manhattan murder mystery.
The “ripped from the headlines” story of how the deadly duo masterminded a plot to steal Irene Silverman’s $7 million townhouse has already spawned a documentary, three books and a number of movie deals.
A spokeswoman for Castle Rock Entertainment confirmed that writers Joseph Bosco and Bruce Kaner are currently in New York researching a screenplay for an untitled feature film.
While she says no one is yet attached to the movie, the names of director Rob Reiner and actresses Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer have been bandied about by insiders.
CBS has plans to adapt Adrian Havill’s book, “The Mother, the Son and the Socialite,” and a source close to the deal recently told The Post that Ann-Margret was being eyed to play Sante.
The juicy tale, packed with weaponry, disguises, mother-son incest and a missing body, is perfect fodder for a made-for-TV movie, says Martin Grove, an online reporter for Hollywood Reporter.
“These days, everybody is looking at the marketplace for anything involving reality,” he says. “It’s usually a form that works better in television.
“It takes so long to develop, produce and release a feature film based on today’s sensational headlines, that it’s old news by the time the movie hits theaters. Television is more immediate.”
While no stars are yet confirmed to play the three main players, New York-based casting director Kerry Barden, who cast “American Psycho” and “Boys Don’t Cry,” offers some nominations.
Brooding bad boy Sean Penn, who played a death-row killer in 1995’s “Dead Man Walking,” is the obvious choice to play his creepy look-alike Kenneth Kimes.
But Barden also suggests Brendan Sexton III, who played a delinquent murderer in “Boys Don’t Cry” – also based on a true story – and Christian Bale, who was evil incarnate as the yuppie serial killer of “American Psycho.”
He says Kathy Bates, who won an Oscar for her role as a mean-spirited woman who holds an author captive in 1990’s “Misery,” would be great as Sante Kimes.
Barden also puts forward “Malcolm in the Middle’s” Jane Kaczmarek, who, he says, has “an intensity and a no-nonsense air, but also has a sense of humor.”
And for the role of the pair’s 82-year-old victim, he casts Maureen Stapleton or English actress Joan Plowright.
“From their pictures in the papers, [the Kimeses] look like very interesting people,” he says. “I think the characters need to have a humanity about them – it’s hard to hang a movie on someone you are repulsed by from the get go.”
