According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount has hired Todd Kessler to adapt the Shannon Burke novel BLACK FLIES. Darren Aronofsky is attached to direct and is producing along with his Protozoa partner Eric Watson. Lorenzo di Bonaventura also is producing.

The novel follows a young man who becomes an emergency medical technician in Harlem as a temporary stop before he enters medical school. While there, he experiences a range of crises and stressful misadventures while under the eye of a mentor who has been numbed to the point that he makes a wrong decision in a life-or-death situation.

The Emmy-nominated Kessler was a writer-producer for "The Sopranos" and also was a writer for Michael Mann's "Robbery Homicide Division."