For more than a year Joel and Ethan Coen have promised their own version of "True Grit," the 1969 Western that earned John Wayne his only Oscar. Now Variety reports that the do-over will be their next project, jumping ahead of their previously announced adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel "The Yiddish Policeman's Union."

Like the Coens' earlier remake "The Ladykillers," this is expected to be a wholesale re-imagining of the material, shifting the focus from cantankerous one-eyed marshal Rooster Cogburn to the 14-year-old girl who hires him to track down her father's killers.

The Coens' next feature to hit the theaters will be "A Serious Man," filmed in the Twin Cities and slated to open in October. It's expected to premiere in May at the Cannes film festival.

COLIN COVERT