The upcoming cop drama Brooklyn’s Finest will be like a dream come true. First for Ethan Hawke, as he’ll be reuniting with the only director who isn’t Sydney Lumet to ever make him look good — Antoine Fuqua.

But far more importantly for screenwriter Michael Martin, who wrote the script to enter a screenplay competition last year. The idea was to win and put the prize money towards replaced his recently totalled car. The resulting sheaf of pages took second in the comeptition but ended up attracting production shingle Thunder Road, which quickly assembled Fuqua and Hawke, along with topliners Richard Gere and Don Cheadle.

According to The Hollywood Reporter the story is “a dramatic ensemble with three intertwining story lines involving Brooklyn cops” that draws on Martin’s experience working for a bus company that was indicted for Mob ties. That’s the poetry of the streets; I hope he just cut and pasted the first few pages from Barton Fink’s wrestling script into this one.

Brooklyn’s Finest will shoot in May in (shocker) Brooklyn. Martin is now working on the script for New Jack City 2 while working a subway job for the NY Transit Authority. No shit. When I can write that about Paul Haggis and Akiva Goldsman I’ll achieve enlightenment.