While J. Blakeson's underrated feature debut "The Disappearance Of Alice Creed" didn't exactly blow up the box office, it did find its way in front of the right people in Hollywood, and they soon came knocking. Over at Warner Bros., he's already been tapped to direct "The Imitation Game," a hot script that has seen hot directors like David Yates, Ralph Fiennes and Bryan Singer among those being sought for the gig. And now, he's got another big project in the works, and it looks like it will roll first, with a pretty decent name attached.
Variety reports that Bradley Cooper will star in "Bad Blood And Trouble," which as you might guess, is a crime thriller. Penned by Blakeson, the film is a 1950s-set tale that will find Cooper playing a Miami detective who falls in love with a married woman, whose husband is threatened by a group of criminals. Sounds like an old school noir premise to us, and that's just fine. But before Cooper can work on this, he has to clear his slate.
He'll spend most of the rest of 2012 shooting "The Hangover Part 3," before re-teaming with David O. Russell to lens "American Bullshit" (or whatever it winds up being called) alongside Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams. As a result, 'Bad Blood' won't shoot until the second half of 2013, and Cooper will also be busy doing press for "The Place Beyond The Pines" premiering at TIFF next month, and likely chatting up Susanne Bier's "Serena" which select folks will get to see footage from in Toronto.
But in any event, we're eager to see what Blakeson can do with with Hollywood coin backing him up. Media Rights Capital ("Elysium," "House Of Cards," "The Adjustment Bureau") are financing and producing the pic, and we're eager to see this one develop. So, with Cooper's slate now theoretically filled up through 2013, where will "A Star Is Born" fit?
That's right, Clint Eastwood is apparently eyeing the actor to take over the lead in his remake of the musical, which still has Beyonce attached to co-star. Over the years, this long-in-development project has seen Will Smith, Robert Downey Jr., Jon Hamm, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale all being rumored/considered to play the washed out, alcoholic musician who helps a wide-eyed girl dreaming of stardom find fame. This spring it was reported that Tom Cruise was being sought by Warner Bros., but nothing else has been heard since. But the character certainly is interesting in this new take.
“I think I’ve reinvented the Norman Maine character, the lead,” screenwriter Will Fetters said in April. “I wanted to do 'A Star is Born' because I’m a huge Kurt Cobain fan. That was like my Kennedy assassination when I was a teenager. When he died it was a huge horrible thing. So I approached 'A Star is Born,' for me the framework was all right, if Kurt Cobain never got to go Unplugged and survived and it’s 20 years later and it’s now, and he wanted to try to do that album with that understanding as this grunge icon. That’d be tough to get done if he was past his prime, no longer selling, how does he get that album?”
So, Cooper as a grungy, Cobain-esque fuck up? It would be inspired we suppose, but we'll see if this pans out.