Even before he received critical acclaim for THE FIGHTER, director David O. Russell was juggling a number of potential projects… which he now seems to be burning through at an alarming rate.
First Russell ditched the mashup adaptation PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES after developing it for months (FRIGHT NIGHT remaker Craig Gillespie is on it now), and then recently exited the feature version of UNCHARTED after turning in a script that altered the videogame’s movie-ready concept into a family of art curators or some shit (LIMITLESS director Neil Burger has thankfully stepped in, with promises to stay true to the game).
Now Russell has bounced from Universal’s 2 GUNS, a project (based on a Boom! comic series) that the director intended to make with Vince Vaughn starring. In a curious twist, Russell’s go-to guy Mark Walhberg will instead replace Vaughn, which still leaves another lead role to be cast (the studio is also scrapping Russell’s rewrite, much as Sony wisely did with his UNCHARTED script). Meanwhile, the seemingly spring-loaded Russell will ostensibly be occupied with THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, and is still hoping to make his dramedy OLD ST. LOUIS with Vaughn someday (and probably another half-dozen projects he’ll work on and inevitably leave).
The 2 GUNS comic synopsis: “In the vein of Ocean’s Eleven and The Italian Job, Two Guns is a pulp story about cops and thieves and the men that are something in between. Trench has targeted a local bank to rob, and asked Steadman in on the job. Trench figures it’s a great way to score – considering it’s a cover for mob money. They’ll be thieves ripping off thieves. But what Steadman doesn’t know is that Trench is a DEA agent. And what Trench doesn’t know is that Steadman’s got his own secret and isn’t who he appears to be…“
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