As Argo gets ready to hit theaters tomorrow, the buzz surrounding the third film in Ben Affleck's directorial resume has been incredibly strong as an Oscar shoe-in that only increases the actor's impressive turn. Though there have been rumors regarding his involvement with Justice League, it's clear that Affleck is aiming to already pick up his next project while hopefully improving his working relationship with Warner Brothers. Now it seems that new film has come with a hometown inclusion as Affleck will seek to bring a New York Times Best-Seller to life.
Deadline reports that Affleck's production company Pearl Street has acquired the film Live By Night, from author Dennis Lahane who was responsible for the source material of Affleck's directorial debut Gone Baby Gone. Affleck will write, produce, direct and star with the project previously set up at Warner Brothers already. Leonardo DiCaprio was originally set to star back in April but now that is obviously not the case, unless it's in another form.
There's no word just yet on when the film is aiming for a production start, but it's clear that Affleck could enter writing early next year in time for filming to begin next Fall for a 2014 release. Interestingly enough, the novel kicks off a trilogy in literature form but it's ultimately unlikely that Affleck will go beyond the one-shot unless he is a large fan of the final product.
For more information, here is the full plot description of the novel from Amazon:
Boston, 1926. The ’20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world.
Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city’s most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw.
But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition, armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns, battle for control, no one—neither family nor friend, enemy nor lover—can be trusted. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. But until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt.
Joe embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa’s Latin Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. Live by Night is a riveting epic layered with a diverse cast of loyal friends and callous enemies, tough rumrunners and sultry femmes fatales, Bible-quoting evangelists and cruel Klansmen, all battling for survival and their piece of the American dream. At once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, it is a spellbinding tour de force of betrayal and redemption, music and murder, that brings fully to life a bygone era when sin was cause for celebration and vice was a national virtue.
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