Talk about The Gangster Squad has been going around for some time now, with the job of helming the project, originally entitled Tales From The Gangster Squad, being a pretty competitive and high-ranking position.
It was offered to both Ben Affleck and Darren Aronofsky, who both ultimately passed it up, and then a shortlist went round that included Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum), Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend), and Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland).
Fleischer was the one who finally beat out the rest of the competition and was given the directing duties, and I think he’s going to make something incredible with it. Collider now have the official synopsis for the film, which has begun principal photography this week.
“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.”
The cast of Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, and Josh Brolin alone would be pretty damn awesome going with that excellent synopsis. But it doesn’t stop there, it gets better. Starring alongside them will be Emma Stone, Robert Patrick, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, and Anthony Mackie, with Nick Nolte, Holt McCallany, Josh Pence, and Mireille Enos all potentially though uncertainly attached.
Definitely a project to look forward to. Fleischer proved himself as a brilliant director with his feature debut, Zombieland, and his next effort, 30 Minutes Or Less, due out here on 16th October, looks as though it will be another great success. Directed from a script by Will Beall (TV’s Nathan Fillion-starrer, Castle), based on a series of articles by Paul Lieberman, The Gangster Squad is set to be an entirely different direction to what we’ve seen from Fleischer in the past, and certainly one to expect big things from. With a fantastic cast attached, and a brilliant and engaging director, I can see nothing but good things coming out of this project. It’s due out sometime in 2013, and the earlier the better in my books.
