Gangster Squad Character Banner – Emma StoneRuben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad has been one of the films I’ve most been looking forward to seeing this year, and after it was sadly forced to be pushed back to the New Year, it’s now set to be one of the best films of 2013.

Led by Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Sean Penn, and Josh Brolin, we caught the first official trailer, following the studio’s decision to reshoot a scene in the wake of this summer’s shooting at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, along with five new character posters last month, and now a full set of eight character banners have debuted over on Facebook.

“Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and—if he has his way—every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It’s enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop…except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) and Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who come together to try to tear Cohen’s world apart.”

Gosling, Stone, Penn, and Brolin star alongside a great cast, headed up by Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, and Robert Patrick, with only Nolte missing in these new banners.

Fleischer (Zombieland) is directing from a script by Will Beall (Castle, the upcoming Justice League), based on Paul Lieberman’s original seven-part article in the LA Times.

Gangster Squad is now slated for release in the UK and US on 11th January, 2013, and will definitely be one of the first films I see in the New Year. I can’t wait. For now, here’s the great new set of character banners, which you can click through to enlarge.