Steven Zaillian developing anthrax attacks film 'Mirage Man'

Veteran filmmaker Steven Zaillian and 20th Century Fox are developing a movie about the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks.

According to Deadline, Fox has acquired feature rights to "The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins The Anthrax Attacks, And America's Rush To War", the 2011 book by Pulitzer winning journalist David William about the hunt for the anthrax killer who terrorised America in the days that followed the 9/11 attacks.

The anthrax attacks began on September 18, 2001, a week after the 9/11 attacks, with letters sent surreptitiously from a mailbox in New Jersey to media and political figures in New York, Florida, and Washington D C. Exposure to anthrax killed five people and infecting 17 others.

Authorities first focused on bio-weapons expert Steven Hatfill, who was eventually exonerated. Bruce Edwards Ivins, a scientist who worked at the government's biodefense labs, became a suspect in 2005 and committed suicide by overdosing on acetaminophen in 2008.

The book focuses on the faulty investigation that led to the public smearing of Hatfill and details Ivins as a deeply troubled scientist who for more than 20 years had unlimited access to the U S Army's stocks of deadly anthrax.

Willman won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for his expose of seven unsafe prescription drugs that had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.