Terrence Howard is Hollywood's latest rising star, it would seem. After earning an Academy Award nomination for his performance in Hustle & Flow, he recently signed on to play Tony Stark's buddy Jim Rhodes in Jon Favreau's Iron Man. Now he's turning his eyes towards America's Heartland for Factor X, based on the Kansas serial killer Dennis Rader, a.k.a. "BTK", according to the Hollywood Reporter.
BTK, which stood for "Bind, Torture, Kill," was the M.O. for Rader, an animal control officer and church official, who stalked the Wichita, KS area between 1974 and 1991, killing at least 10 people that he confessed to. He taunted the media at the time with various twisted communications indicating that "Factor X" was what was causing him to commit such heinous crimes. He resurfaced in 2004, possibly due to a desire to be caught or due to a lack of attention, restarting a series of communications with the media again. This ultimately led to his capture in 2005, and his ultimate sentencing to serve out ten consecutive life terms, not being eligible for parole until after 175 years, because Kansas has no death penalty.
Factor X, from New Line Cinema, will tell the story of real-life counter-terrorism expert Stanley Campbell, and how he developed a mathematical data reduction model to weed out possible suspects. Howard will play the part of Campbell, while ex-Hulkster Eric Bana will play a Wichita police detective who teams up with Campbell to try and solve the case.
Campbell apparently was reluctant to sell his story, but eventually gave in to writer Gregory Allen Howard after Howard assured him he would not write an exploitative script.
I always thought Rader got off easy, based on his crimes and his description of them at his trial. Too bad Kansas didn't have a death penalty.
