Alcon bought the rights from producer-director Bud Yorkin, who will produce the new film along with Alcon, Cynthia Sikes Yorkin and Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove.

FORBES: Ridley Scott is Making a New ��Blade Runner�� Movie

The novel works on you as unshakably as a bad dream, but such creeping fears descend on the film only with the arrival of Bill Sikes (Jamie Foreman) and Nancy (Leanne Rowe).

NEWYORKER: Oliver Twist

And the answer was we - and I'm sure people are going to write in and I hope they do and say, well, you fool, you missed, you know, Lily Tomlin's this or Wanda Sikes' that.

NPR: The Funny Side of Fatherhood