Reiterating what’s already been reported in the trades at the beginning of October — and not just random rumors — director John Hillcoat (“The Road,” “The Proposition”) has his eye on his next project which is an adaptation of Matt Bondurant’s novel “The Wettest County in the World” — a depression-era crime drama about three brothers who ran a bootlegging gang during the Prohibition (the author is actually the grandson of one of the men and the book is “based on a true story”).
Names surrounding the project include Shia LaBeouf, Ryan Gosling, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Dano and Michael Shannon, and in an interview with Atomic Popcorn (whoever the hell they are), Hillcoat confirms that LaBeouf and Gosling are attached, but that he “shouldn’t talk about it,” essentially because it’s probably not a done deal (and the “attached” language is theirs not his).
So really, we’re not really any further ahead than we were a month ago. But wait, a closer look shows that Nick Cave — who penned Hillcoat’s “The Proposition” — is writing the screenplay to ‘Wettest County’ and that’s definitely something new and idea to savor.
But Hillcoat hints at the film economy out there and getting projects like this greenlit, even with great talent like these names can be difficult. “[The setting is] west Virginia , moonshine, backwoods, and Prohibition. Nick Cave has written the script and we’ve got a phenomenal cast. Hopefully, but — it’s really tough out there.” Some negotiations are taking place hence his reluctance to talk about the cast because, “it’s in the middle of all sorts of stuff.”
But it sounds great and hopefully someone is willing to take the risk (though a few years ago, this was a slam dunk package).
Here’s one synopsis of the book:
This family saga follows the Bondurants, bootlegging brothers runnin’ stills, runnin’ loads, and runnin’ from the law in Depression-era Virginia. The book is mainly narrated through the experience of the youngest Bondurant, Jack (in truth, a grandfather of the author), and his family’s moonshine enterprise supplies the action in a plot that evokes the culture of distilling and distributing white lightning. To optimistic Jack, bootlegging is both a bond to his older brothers, Forrest and Howard, and a means to make cash to impress a girl. Forrest, by contrast, is taciturn and suspicious: the world is violent, and he meets it on that ground. Tender of the stills and imbiber from same, burly Howard is always ready to take on the Bondurants’ enemies, corrupt law officers. Wending through this conflict in flash-forward mode is novelist Sherwood Anderson, who plumbs the Bondurant story a few years after the brothers’ climactic confrontation with the county sheriff. Descriptively gritty and emotionally resonant, novelist Bondurant dramatically projects the poverty and danger at the heart of the old-time bootlegging life.
One things for sure. Hopefully they get a green light before “The Road,” hits theaters, because while it is a very solid film (if too bleak and monochromatic for many), it’s probably not going to light up the box-office (really, an understatement). And it’s probably only going to push Hillcoat further into that “arthouse” category/marginalized ghetto. And these days, no one — aside from Europeans already successfully doing so with their small, modest means — want to be in that business. Especially not with big American names that can potentially bring in big business. Praise the almighty dollar. Art, please take a backseat.
In related news, Hillcoat says he’s going to take Nick Cave’s recent novel, “The Death of Bunny Munro” and adapt it for television and do it in an HBO-style in the U.K. which probably means a few serialized chapters or episodes. Could be pretty cool.