Eric Bana was great in Munich and I was beginning to wonder if he’d fallen into a well or something there has been so little news on him. Apparently he’s fine and is preparing for his new role in Factor X. The good folks over at comingsoon.net give us this:

Eric Bana and Terrence Howard are attached to star in Factor X, a thriller being written by Gregory Allen Howard for New Line Cinema telling the true tale of how the BTK killer was captured, says The Hollywood Reporter. Ridley Scott and Scott Free Productions president Michael Costigan will produce the project, which could become a directing vehicle for Scott.

The serial killer known as BTK murdered people in and around Wichita, Kan., from 1974-91 and was finally caught in 2005, turning out to be a mild-mannered leader at a local church. The acronym described his modus operandi, which was to bind, torture and kill.

Factor X, which takes its name from what the killer described in taunting letters to the police as his motive for murder, tells how a young, black counterterrorism expert from Washington teamed up with a Wichita police detective, who spent his career trying to chase down the killer.

Bana will play the detective and Terrence Howard would be the counterterrorism expert.

This sounds like a good movie, my kind of flick actually. There is something about serial killers that I find endlessly fascinating, their intelligence mixed with lack of conscience is baffling but so compelling to watch when it is done well. And the BTK killer is my favorite, a church leader who loves to bind torture and kill, that’s so……Godly. Wait! No, no it’s not at all, it’s actually very very wrong.

That’s what makes the story so interesting, a church man with a violently sadistic mind that kills for 17 years and then suddenly stopped murdering for no apparent reason. Then there are the detectives that never gave up on the case, following him for so many years must have taken a large toll.

It would be cool to see Ridley Scott direct this, he already directed a serial killer movie (Hannibal) and his style would be an asset should he decide to do Factor X. But with or without Scott this movie should be a success, the BTK killer is one of those stories that continues to shock plus it’s fresh from the news, the killer was only caught last year.

Add to the talented Eric Bana and Terrence Howard who no one has seen enough of yet and you can expect a great movie. I only wish that Bana was playing the killer.