The Coen Brothers Will Write DARK WEB, a Thriller About The Internet's Silk Road

You may have heard of "The Silk Road," the online illegal-drug marketplace created by Ross William Ulbricht (who was known online as Dread Pirate Roberts). Wired ran a two-part piece on him back in 2015, and Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) was originally brought on to write the script for a film telling Ulbricht's story. Now THR reports that the Coen Brothers are taking over the writing duties, though they have no plans to direct the eventual feature film.

This isn't the first time the Coens have written a movie they didn't direct. Recently they took a crack at the script for Micheal Hoffman's Gambit remake, Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, and George Clooney's upcoming Suburbicon.

Dark Web is described as a thriller, and in a weird twist, the real-life story that inspired it was actually compared to the films of the Coens themselves because of how twisty and bizarre it was. I suppose taking on the script is the natural end of this weird ouroboros.