Actor George Clooney will star in an adaptation of Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi‘s nonfiction book, The Monster of Florence. Valkyrie screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander will team up to work on the script.

Grand Central Publishing released the nonfiction book in 2008. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tom Cruise was originally slated to star in the movie–Cruise recruited McQuarrie for the project.

Here’s more about the book: “Preston and Spezi’s book is an investigation into the murderer (or murderers) known as Il Mostro, who killed more than a dozen people from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s without being caught. In the course of their digging, Preston, who had moved with his family to a villa in Florence, and Spezi, an Italian crime journalist, were themselves then investigated by the police.”

New York Times journalist Maureen Dowd stars in the new comic, The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd (A Work of Satire & Fiction). In the book, Dowd sports lingerie and wears a gun in her stocking.

Gawker has more about the comic: “Marra’s comic book dramatizes our flame-haired heroine’s role in the 2003 Valerie Plame affair. MoDo discusses journalist ethics, gets in Blackberry screaming matches, defies gun-wielding intruders who want to steal her laptop and hush up her columns and flirts with Tom Friedman en route to a date with George Clooney.”

Comic creator Benjamin Marra wrote and illustrated the comic. It features 24 black and white interior pages and sells for $3.

Today four adaptations of books scored five major awards from the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), moving one important step closer towards the Academy Awards.

The literary winners were: Meryl Streep won best actress for “Julie & Julia” (based on Julie Powell‘s memoir); Mo’Nique won best supporting actress for “Precious” (based on “Push” by Sapphire); George Clooney won best actor for “Up In The Air” (based on Walter Kirn‘s novel) and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (based on the book by Roald Dahl); and finally, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” took the best animated film award.

These wins can be crucial for a film’s award season. In 2007, the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s “No Country for Old Men” scored best picture, director and best supporting actor at the NYFCC awards–winning big at the Academy Awards that same year. eventual Oscar winners all. case you were wondering, the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer‘s Twilight Saga: New Moon did not take a single award.