John Hillcoat, director of the upcoming Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road, has jumped behind the lens of The Wettest Country in the World. According to Variety, the film will be produced by Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher through Red Wagon and Columbia Pictures.

The screenplay is based on Matt Bondurant's upcoming novel of the same name. The story is based on a real moonshine gang that operated out of Franklin County, Virginia. The film will take place during prohibition, and centers on Bondurant's own grandfather and two granduncles. Together, they made up a fierce criminal gang at the center of the country's moonshine trade. The three brothers were killed in 1930 after refusing to join the illegal cartel set up by Commonwealth's Attorney Carter Lee, grandnephew of Robert E. Lee. Carter Lee was subsequently tried for conspiracy.

Columbia's Matt Tolmach stated that the book "is beautifully observed and has a very distinctive, strong narrative voice in the tradition of some of the best American novels."

Shooting on the film should begin before the end of summer.