George Clooney looks set to star in a film based on a book about a series of killings in Italy attributed to a serial killer known as the "monster of Florence", according to the Hollywood Reporter. Studio Fox 2000 has picked up the screen rights to Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi's bestselling book about a murderer who may have killed more than a dozen people in the late 60s to the 80s.

The "monster" was said to locate couples in public places and murder them, often with a .22 Beretta gun. The killer or killers would sometimes cut out the woman's pubic area with a knife. It is not yet known which role Clooney might play, but the screenplay is being written by Valkyrie's Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander.

Tom Cruise was previously attached to the film after securing the screen rights in August 2008, not long after the book was published.