After directing big-budget sci-fi movies such as Tron: Legacy and Oblivion, director Joseph Kosinski is taking on a much smaller project, the adaptation The Trials of White Boy Rick for Universal Pictures.

The plot is based on the Atavist article of the same name written by journalist Evan Hughes, which chronicles the life of Rick Wershe, a teenager living in Detroit in the 1980s. He became a notable cocaine trafficker in the predominantly African-American East Side of Detroit, which earned him the nickname "White Boy Rick." While he was rising through the ranks of Detroit drug dealers, Rick was also working as an undercover informant for the FBI and DEA. The story was first published on The Atatvist website on September 29.

Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark are producing through their Bluegrass Films company, which is based at Universal. Evan Ratliff, who co-founded The Atavist with Jefferson Webb, is serving as an executive producer.

It isn't known if this will be Joseph Kosinski's next project or not. He has been attached to a number of projects recently, including Tron 3, The Black Hole, The Twilight Zone and Go Like Hell.