Moonshine movie in the works

Shia LaBeouf

Scarlett Johansson

Ryan Gosling

Franklin County's moonshine history may soon be in the national spotlight.

John Hillcoat, an Australian film director, is working on an adaptation of "The Wettest County in the World," a novel by Matt Bondurant.

The novel is a fictionalized account of Bondurant's true ancestors, who slung hooch during the Great Depression and Prohibition.

His grandfather, Jack Bondurant, and two great-uncles, Forrest and Howard Bondurant, were in the spotlight when the trio was arrested and put on trial for bootlegging. Theirs' was part of "The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935." A book of the same name was penned by the late T. Keister Greer, who practiced law in Rocky Mount.

Actors rumored to be interested in the project include Shia LaBeouf (of "Transformers"), Ryan Gosling (of "The Notebook") and Scarlett Johansson (of "Lost in Translation").