According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Independent Pictures and Cherry Road Films have optioned the rights to Italian U.N. Diplomat Giandomenico Picco's memoir Man Without a Gun. Stuart Beattie (Collateral) has been tapped to adapt.

The book, published by Crown in 1999, chronicles Picco's 20-year-plus career as a high-level diplomat helping to negotiate the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and to bring an end to the Iran-Iraq war. The story also follows Picco's role in resolving the Lebanon hostage crisis, which involved dangerous direct negotiations with the kidnappers in Beirut. Cherry Road principals Bo Hyde and Kendall Morgan will executive produce.