HBO’s John Adams director Tom Hooper and scribe Christopher Hampton are set to work on Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment adaptation of John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.”

First published in 1952, “East of Eden” is Steinbeck’s telling of the Cain and Abel story, again. The setting is California’s Salinas Valley of a multigenerational story that focuses on the Trask brothers and a woman who comes between the siblings.

With Hooper set to direct the studio hopes to put East of Eden in production later on this year.

Hooper told Variety that “East of Eden” was one of the formative literary influences of his teenage years. “There is an opportunity to show the sex, violence and darkness of Steinbeck’s work, along with the optimism and celebration of love,” said Hooper