The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Day the Earth Stood Still director, Scott Derrickson, had been annouced as the director of Devil's Knot, an adaptation of a book based on the West Memphis Three case, but circumstances have forced him to leave the project, RT has learned. Derrickson told RT that despite spending a large amount of time preparing the movie it looked like the project wouldn't be happening with him at the helm.

The West Memphis Three are Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin who, in the early nineties, were convicted of the murders of three 8 year-old boys in the Robin Hood Hills area of West Memphis, Arkansas. Many believe that the convictions were a miscarriage of justice and that their trial was based on questionable evidence. Two feature-length documentaries, called Paradise Lost, have been released about the case with a third in production.

"I really care about that story - I think it's an important story - and I'm sad I'm not going to get to tell it," Derrickson told us. "I went to West Memphis, I've communicated with most of the surviving parents of the victims and I've seen the entire crime scene file. I've read all the court transcripts of both trials and really did my research. Looking at the actual crime scene photos is one of the most depressing experiences I've had. It was really, really awful.

"I absolutely believe that the West Memphis Three are innocent. I know everything about that crime and I think the fact that they're in prison is ridiculous."

For Derrickson, the story was an interesting counterpoint to his work on Emily Rose. "I really thought it was an extraordinary story about America, and a really interesting, microcosmic view of America," he said. "The role that religion came to play in the judicial system and the impropriety of that - in some ways it was the flipside to Emily Rose to me. Emily Rose was asking the audience to really consider and take seriously the possibility of the demonic existing. This story was going to be, in some ways, the incredible danger of taking that stuff too seriously; if you take that stuff too seriously people get hurt."

Another director may be chosen for the project, but Derrickson has moved on. His fascination with the darker side of religion continues, though, as -- coincidentally -- his next project is an adaptation of Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, about Satan and the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. Find out more about that project here.

UPDATE: In response to an earlier version of this story, Derrickson wishes to point out that there are no rights issues preventing the project from moving ahead. The article has been corrected above.