Warner Bros. Hires Michael Starrbury to Rewrite 'Fully Automatic' Script (Exclusive)

Michael Starrbury has been hired to rewrite Fully Automatic, an action movie from Silver Pictures set up at Warner Bros.

The project, set up as a spec by Randy Feldman in 2002, centers on two smart-mouthed rookie cops who team up with a female Delta Force operative to stop a mercenary who's stolen a cache of weapons. The project is aimed to be in the tone of a classic buddy action movie but made for today’s audiences.

Joel Silver and Andrew Rona are producing with Silver Pictures’ Alex Heineman and Ethan Erwin exec producing.

The interesting aspect here is Starrbury who, unlike many other screenwriters, is ratcheting up a screenwriting career in his 30s and while living in Minneapolis, MN, as opposed to being in his 20s and living in a guest house in Los Angeles.

In between dropping his two kids off at school, Starrbury, repped by CAA, Caliber Media Co and attorney Rob Szymanski, has sold a half-hour comedy pitch to ABC with Peter Tolan and Michael Wimer producing and before that, developed a pilot at Comedy Central called Black Jack that Rough House produced and David Gordon Green directed. His big break came when he wrote an indie drama titled  The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, and which caught the attention of George Tillman. Tillman is making it his next directorial effort and will shoot it in spring 2012.

Now, with Fully Automatic, Starrbury has jumped into the studio world.

Silver Pictures, meanwhile, is  behind next months’ Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and Project X, a comedy it produced with Todd Phillips which opens in March.