Chris Columbus buys rights to THE CYPRESS HOUSE, will write and produce

Chris Columbus and 1492 Pictures have bought the rights to th Michael Koryta novel, The Cypress House. Deadline reports that Columbus will write the script and produce with 1492 partners Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe. The story takes place "along an isolated stretch of the Florida Gulf Coast during the devastating 1935 hurricane. The protagonist is a WWI veteran who's plagued by premonitions of death for his traveling companions."

Here is a description of the book from Amazon:

Battle-hardened WWI veteran Arlen Wagner can foretell others’ deaths. With the Great Depression crippling the country, he works in the Civilian Conservation Corps and keeps his demons at bay with hard work and a flask full of whiskey. He and young friend Paul Brickhill are traveling by train to a new CCC camp in the Florida Keys when Arlen’s supernatural sense tells him they have to get off the train if they want to stay alive. They find themselves at Cypress House, a strangely empty fishing resort on the Gulf Coast run by beautiful but taciturn Rebecca Cady—and right in the middle of a vipers’ nest of small-town corruption and misery. 

This production team just produced the Tate Taylor-directed adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's bestseller The Help, which will be released in August. Columbus is developing and plans to direct his take on a Korean film Hello Ghost. 

This sounds like a pretty cool story. It will be interesting to see who signs on to direct and star in the film., What are your thoughts of this news?