Premiering at Sundance Film Festival to great reception, the Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck-led drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints signaled a major break-out for writer-director David Lowery. While audiences will be able to see the film later this summer, we awaited to hear what the emerging talent would do next and were taken aback when the news sprung up that he’d be writing a Disney reboot of Pete’s Dragon. But now another project has now surfaced and it’s one that sees him in more familiar territory.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lowery has been set to adapt and direct The Old Man and the Gun, coming from a 2003 New Yorker article by David Grann (which can be read here). He’s also already found his producer and star with Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford. The actor-director has now made a habit of reteaming with some of the brightest talents at his Park City event, also starring in the next film from Margin Call director J.C. Chandor, All is Lost.
While that film sees Redford alone at sea, this one will put him in shoes of Forrest Tucker, a 1920-born man who spent his life robbing banks, spending time in jail and then escaping (18 times, to be exact). The film will actually focus in on Tucker when he is nearing 80, spending his time in a retirement home, yet still robbing banks. His last hurrah found him behind bars for 13 years after a robbery and high-speed chance in 2000. He didn’t have time to live it out however, dying five years later. Expect updates soon on the film and one can see Ain’t Them Bodies Saints when it arrives on August 16th.
Are you looking forward to seeing the career of Lowery blossom? What do you think of Redford’s role?