America and the Academy Awards. He received an award for his writing in film at the US-Ireland Alliance's second annual "Oscar Wilde: Honoring Irish Writing in Film" ceremony. Producing and directing In 2006 Monahan negotiated a first-look producing deal with Warner Bros., which gave the studio a right of first refusal on any films produced by Henceforth, the production company he started. In return Henceforth received the film rights to produce John Pearson's true crime book The Gamblers, a property which Warner Bros. had previously acquired. In 2007 Monahan was hired to work on two film projects: an adaptation of the Hong Kong film Confession of Pain and an original rock and roll film, The Long Play. Monahan was initially assigned to executive produce and write the adaptation for Confession of Pain, under production by Leonardo DiCaprio's company, Appian Way, for Warner Bros. Pictures. It would represent his second adaption of an Andrew Lau and Alan Mak film. Monahan's other assignment was to rewrite a screenplay about the history of the rock music business called The Long Play, the brainchild of Mick Jagger, lead singer of The Rolling Stones, which had been incubating at Jagger's production company, Jagged Films at Disney. Martin Scorsese became involved while the film project was at Disney and subsequently negotiated a turnaround deal to bring The Long Play to Paramount. However, neither of these projects were completed. Monahan's directorial debut was London Boulevard, released in 2010, which he also produced. An adaption of a Ken Bruen work by the same name, it was received with both criticism and praise, with The Hollywood Reporter stating that as director he "sashays winningly" into the premise of Bruen's "stylish line in mean-streets poetry", further commenting the film as "adapted sharply". The New York Post's Kyle Smith excitedly wrote "one of Hollywood’s most in-demand writers whips up a potent directorial debut"; however, others adjudged the film as unfocused, complaining of "a surplus of plot threads that don't have space to play out, and accordingly com[ing] across as clichés", that he "ended up with more than he can chew for his first time in the director's chair". A few years later, a version of The Gambler was finally generated, as written and executive produced. The film received mixed reviews, with some people complementing Jessica Lange's performance, while others, including Peter Travers from Rolling Stone, calling the film's unclear character motivations