Ray Winstone is reportedly in line to lead John Hillcoat’s adaptation of regular collaborator Nick Cave’s novel “The Life And Death Of Bunny Munro.”
“Winstone is dying to do it,” Cave told the Dundee Literary Festival. “He really loved the script when we first handed it to him. He was really excited about it, and really distressed when it kinda tanked and never got made.”
The novel was apparently first conceived as a script — where Winstone’s interest first came about — but, due to its failure to be produced, Cave eventually wrote it as a novel which, in turn, is now set to be made as a British television mini-series. The story of Cave’s second novel follows the titular middle aged lothario whose life of womanizing and alcoholism is turned upside down by the suicide of his wife. The traveling cosmetic salesman then proceeds to go on a road trip around Brighton, England with his son, Bunny Junior, a trip that ultimately develops into a sharp descent into depravity.
Winstone, of course, starred in the brutal Australian outback Hillcoat/Cave film “The Proposition,” a role which saw the actor leave a lasting impression on Cave, likely leading to the potential forthcoming collaboration. “Ray let himself go for that particular part,” Cave explains. “He was drinking and kind of out of shape and looking pretty rough, but he had this kind of magnetism about him where all the women involved were weak at the knees when Ray was around. And when he speaks everyone cranes towards him: he has this kind of pull which is really extraordinary. It’s something to do with his ability to be really funny, and the kind of vulnerability he has going on.”
Interestingly, Cave also adds that he and Hillcoat are “trying to get another full-length feature film set up” which Empire speculates as being their infamously fallen adaptation of depression-era crime drama, “The Wettest County In The World.” As much as we’d love for that to be true, we’re not so confident — a prolific screenwriter in his own right, Cave probably has a handful of a projects potentially up for production or may even be simply rewriting one of projects Hillcoat is already attached to, including the period revenge-actioner “The Revenant” starring Christian Bale; “Mob Cops” with Terrence Winter; an adaptation of Joe Penhall’s play “Landscape With Weapons” and the remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic 1970 neo-noir “Le Cercle Rouge.”
Either way, it’s good to see Hillcoat and Cave picking themselves up after the demoralizing demise of their “dream project” in ‘The Wettest County.’ We can’t see wait to see what they conjure up next.