As Danny Boyle’s new stage production of “Frankenstein” goes into previews at London’s National Theatre, his Oscar-nominated screenwriting collaborator Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) is working on a film project set in gangland Los Angeles.

It’s a venture called Sharp Teeth, and Beaufoy is hoping that Danny Boyle will jump onboard. He says: “If I write it well enough, he’ll direct it,” he told the BBC. “It’s an adaptation of a book by a writer called Toby Barlow (take a look inside) and it’s a very extraordinary mix of gangland Los Angeles, really, really rough — a lot of shootings — and the difference with this particular piece of work is that these gangs can shape-shift at will into packs of dogs.”

The BBC adds that Beaufoy has been researching his screenplay by riding along with the Los Angeles police.
“An ancient race of lycanthropes has survived to the present day, and its numbers are growing as the initiated convince L.A.’s down and out to join their pack. Paying no heed to moons, full or otherwise, they change from human to canine at will–and they’re bent on domination at any cost.

Blending dark humor and epic themes with card-playing dogs, crystal meth labs, surfing, and carne asada tacos, Sharp Teeth captures the pace and feel of a graphic novel while remaining “as ambitious as any literary novel, because underneath all that fur, it’s about identity, community, love, death, and all the things we want our books to be about” [Nick Hornby, The Believer].”