Scott Cooper, director of last year’s Jeff Bridges-led musical tale of redemption “Crazy Heart,” is reportedly attached to direct a remake of Pablo Trapero‘s 2010 thriller “Carancho,” which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year in the Un Certain Regard category and has been submitted as Argentina’s representative for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars.
Rights to the remake are currently being shopped by Imagine Entertainment and producer Roy Lee with the project boasting not only Cooper at the helm but a script by Aaron Stockard, whose short, impressive resumé includes Ben Affleck‘s “The Town” and “Gone Baby Gone.” With a title translated as “Vulture,” the original picture centers on an ambulance-chasing personal injury attorney who straddles the line between helping unfortunate accident victims and exploiting them by skimming the proceeds for his employer. A larger conspiracy unfolds, however, as the lawyer falls for a young hospital doctor and seems on the verge finding some worth in his life.
Sounds like a interesting story to remake but more intriguing is the fact the film is vastly different to the host of period dramas Cooper has been linked to — and frankly, projects we’d prefer to see him tackling — as a sophomore directorial effort. Those include a film based on the iconic rivalry between “The Hatfields And The McCoys” with Brad Pitt and Robert Duvall attached, a film adaptation of Bob Dylan‘s “Brownsville Girl” also with Pitt, a Comanche drama written by Larry McMurtry, a film based on slave rebellion leader Nat Turner, an adaptation of William Styron‘s “Lie Down In Darkness” initiated by the Styron family with Jennifer Lawrence gunning for a lead role as well as being shortlisted by Warner Bros. for “Tales From The Gangster Squad.”
“Carancho” also screened at the recent AFI Festival and will be released next year through L.A. based Strand Releasing. Here’s a trailer for the film.