THR is reporting that Lee Daniels, director of 2009’s Academy Award-winning Precious, is going to be directing Matthew McConaughey, Tobey Maguire, Zac Efron, and Sofía Vergara in upcoming thriller, The Paperboy, the film adaptation of the 1995 book of the same name by Pete Dexter.
Pedro Almodóvar (The Skin I Live In, All About My Mother) has been working with Dexter on turning the novel into a film for over a decade, and with Daniels now signed on to direct, and the leads now filled with some promising names, the project is certainly taking a more concrete form.
At the centre of the story is the character Jack James (presumably to be played by Efron), younger brother of investigative journalist, Ward, who works for the Miami Times. Ward returns to his hometown in Moat County, Florida, with fellow reporter Yardley Acheman to look deeper into the murder of a local sheriff, whose supposed murderer is on death row. A woman by the name of Charlotte Bless has fallen in love with the inmate, and comes to Florida to help fight against his execution, and it is she who first puts Ward and Yardley onto the case.
Though it is yet to be announced, it’s likely safe to assume that Ward and Acheman will be played by McConaughey and Maguire, and Bless will be played by Vergara. Which of the roles will go to each of the men is not yet clear. Acheman is said to be a man who likes to cut corners and is more willing to be a little more lenient with the “facts,” so I think McConaughey could well be the more likely of the two to be cast in his role, with Maguire perhaps more believable as a small-town reporter making a name for himself in Miami. The novel is told from the perspective of Jack, so of all the stars, Efron could well be the most prominent in The Paperboy, which gets its name from Jack’s job delivering the papers for his father’s newspaper.
Efron is often undeservedly written off as a ‘serious actor’ because of his popularity amongst young teens after his success with High School Musical, but in my eyes he’s shown he’s more than capable to fill other roles in recent years. Hilary Shor (Children of Men) will be producing alongside Daniels, and Avi Lerner, Trevor Short, and Danny Dimbort (the team that brought us The Expendables, The Mechanic, and will be bringing us Red Sonja) will be serving as executive producers. Daniels is going to be working on Selma, an upcoming film about the Civil Rights Movement in 1960s America, and hopefully work on The Paperboy will get underway soon after that.
