Late last year we got word that Sean Penn was looking to re-team with his 21 Grams director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and bring Leonardo DiCaprio along with him, for The Revenant. But then just last week the director jumped to another project, based on Jennifer Vogel’s crime drama Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father’s Counterfeit Life. And today we got word that DiCaprio will actually be collaborating with Martin Scorsese for his next project. So, where does this leave Sean Penn?
Vulture has the full story, which goes into all the details, but for the basic gist, DiCaprio was passionate about The Revenant, whereas Penn was more attracted to Flim-Fam Man (now being titled Red Flag). As financing geared up for the latter film, it gave DiCaprio a reason to exit for his Scorsese project and Penn could step in on this new Inarritu feature, where he would play “a real-life bank robber, arsonist, fraudster, addict, and counterfeiter of more than $20 million.”
So, chances are Penn will be starring in this new Inarritu film and once that completes, plans are to circle back in August of 2013 to see if DiCaprio is still interested in The Revenant, as he currently remains invested. Despite his recent projects not living up to his debut Amores Perros, I can’t complain if we end up getting Inarritu films back-to-back with two fine actors like these. Fair Game writer Jez Butterworth scripted Red Flag and one can check out a full synopsis from Amazon below.
A frank and intimate portrait of a charismatic, larger-than-life underworld figure, as told by the daughter who nearly followed in his footsteps.
“Do unto others before they do unto you,” John Vogel used to advise his daughter, Jennifer. By his account, the world was a crooked place and one had to be crooked in order to survive. A lifelong criminal, John robbed banks, burned down buildings, scammed investors, plotted murder, and single-handedly counterfeited more than $20 million. He also wrote a novel, invented a “jean stretcher,” baked lemon meringue pies, and arranged for ten-year-old Jennifer to see Rocky in an empty theater on Christmas Eve. In his reckless pursuit of the American Dream, he could be genuinely good. When it came time to pass his phony bills, he targeted Wal-Mart for political reasons.
In 1995, following John’s arrest in what turned out to be the fourth-largest seizure of counterfeit bills in U.S. history, he managed to slip away, leaving his now grown daughter to wonder what had become of him. Framed around the six months Jennifer’s father ran from the law, Flim-Flam Man vividly chronicles the police chase — stakeouts, lie detector tests, even a segment on Unsolved Mysteries. In describing her tumultuous life with John Vogel, Jennifer deftly examines the messy, painful, and almost inescapable inheritance one generation bequeaths to the next.