It’s about to bring together a cast that includes Aaron Johnson, Taylor Kitsch, Salma Hayek and Benicio Del Toro, but Oliver Stone‘s Savages has taken an even bigger step forward, with news coming in that Universal is planning to distribute the film.

THR says that the studio has closed a deal to handle the film, with shooting to begin at the relatively close point of June. Based on Don Winslow‘s novel of the same name, the movie follows two pot growers, Ben and Chon (Johnson and Kitsch), who must rescue their girlfriend, O, from a deadly drug cartel, who’ve kidnapped her so that they’ll work for them; the cartel’s matriarch (Hayek) soon develops motherly feelings of protection towards the girl.

The role of O was originally going to be played by Jennifer Lawrence but is now an open part, due to her involvement with The Hunger Games. Del Toro is said to play the druge enforcer named Lado, who warns them that they have to work for his group. I’m glad to see they’ll be taking the movie into their hands, and I think that this could be something of a rebound for Stone, who’s been struggling with critical and commercial disappointments over the past few years.

Are you excited for Savages? What do you think of the cast?