Shortly after being posthumously recognized by the City of Westmount at its Vin d'honneur ceremony earlier this month, the late writer was in the news again last week, with the announcement that another one of his excellent novels will soon be getting the big-screen treatment.

This time, 'Barney's Version' will be going before the cameras, courtesy of producer Robert Lantos and director Richard J. Lewis.

Arguably Richler's best novel — though many would hold up their well-worn copies of 'St. Urbain's Horseman' and 'Solomon Gursky Was Here' in loud literary protest — 'Barney's Version' will star the very bankable, Oscar-nominated Paul Giamatti in the title role, and is scheduled to be shot this summer on location in Rome, New York, and of course good old Montreal and the Laurentians.

But despite the deliciously promising prospect of Giamatti as the unforgettably irreverent Barney Panofsky, the project faces a daunting obstacle even before all the locations are scouted and the extras are cast — for history has shown us that Richler novels are notoriously difficult to pull off on film. Some would even say impossible.

Although several of Richler's short stories were successfully dramatized over the years in various television anthologies, the track record of films from his novels is indeed dismal. 'Joshua Then and Now', with James Woods in the title role, can most mercifully be described as disappointing, while 2007's much-anticipated made-for-TV dramatization of 'St. Urbain's Horseman' failed on nearly all levels.

Even the successful 1974 film version of 'The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz' was nowhere near as good as the book, but it is by the far the best of the three — so much so that to this day, many readers no doubt picture the young, lean Richard Dreyfuss when they read that novel for the first time.

And now comes 'Barney's Version', unfortunately to be Richler's final novel. The producers say they are confident that the screenplay, which was in development for no less than 12 years (or ever since the book was published), is worthy of Richler's Giller-winning novel. I hope they are right.

When 'Barney's Version' finally hits the screen, I will be in the front row, with my fingers crossed — hoping that someone has finally broken the Richler curse and made a film that is at least nearly as good as the book.