With an all-star cast headed up by Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, and Sean Penn, Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad was one of the most anticipated films of the year, originally set for release last month, and coming in as a contender for the coming awards season.
When tragedy struck over the summer with the shooting at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, however, the film was pushed back in order to reshoot a scene that had a similar content to the real-life events.
The early trailers we saw were fantastic, but have swiftly been removed by Warner Bros. in the wake of the delay, and with the new trailer set to debut tomorrow, a terrific new poster has paved the way for the new campaign promoting its upcoming release in the New Year.
“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.”
Fleischer (Zombieland) is taking a fascinating new direction in his career, following his first two brilliant comedies in Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less, and I can’t wait to see what he brings us with this period crime drama.
Will Beall, whose credits include Castle and the upcoming Justice League film, has penned the script, based on Paul Lieberman’s original seven-part article in the LA Times, with Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, and Robert Patrick completing the cast nicely.
Gangster Squad is now set for release on 11th January, 2013 in the UK and US, a date which really can’t come fast enough. It was a real shame that the studio felt they had to push the film back for re-cuts, and I’m hoping that we might get the film in its original form when it eventually hits DVD/Blu-ray next year. Time will tell. In the meantime, here’s the great new poster, which you can click to enlarge. And be sure to come back tomorrow when the new trailer hits.
