Update: According to the official press release, the title is now Out Of The Furnace.

Since making his directorial debut with 2009′s Crazy Heart, Scott Cooper has had a ton of offers coming in. Among those is the opportunity to write the script for Francis Lawrence‘s World War II film Unbroken, the directing job for Tales from the Gangster Squad and a film adaptation of Louis Bayard‘s novel The Pale Blue Eye which he has signed on to write and direct. Now he’ll also be rewriting the script for and directing The Low Dweller [Deadline].

The spec script comes courtesy of Brad Ingelsby, and made a big stir when it appeared in 2008. After being purchased by Relativity Media, it had Leonardo DiCaprio attached as the star and Ridley Scott in line to direct, but they’ve both dropped out of those parts and taken up producing credits instead. The companies behind it will be DiCaprio’s Appian Way, Scott’s Scott Free Productions and Energy Entertainment’s Brooklyn Weaver.

The film is described as such:

“A dark drama set in 1986 Indiana. The protagonist is Slim, a man released after serving years in prison for murder who wants only to follow through on his promise to marry his long-suffering girlfriend. But when he discovers his brother has been murdered after getting involved in a gambling racket, his goals change and he avenges the murder.”

Said to have a “No Country for Old Men spare vibe to it,” the project sounds like it could be interesting. If he makes this his next, it’s interesting that his sophomore effort would be so different from his first film. Often a director’s second movie shares some similarities with their freshman effort, but this sounds nothing like Crazy Heart. Just from his first film, I feel safe in saying that he has talent behind the camera and I look forward to seeing him try something new.

Does this project intrigue you? Were you a fan of Cooper’s work on Crazy Heart?