Zoe Saldana & Casey Affleck Go 'Out Of The Furnace'

Crazy Heart helmer Scott Cooper's low-budget thriller shoots this Spring with Christian Bale in the lead role.

A cast is quickly coming together for "Crazy Heart" director Scott Cooper's low-budget Relativity Media thriller Out Of The Furnace, a movie that we found out last week is gearing up to shoot this spring with Christian Bale in the leading role. Formerly titled €œThe Low Dweller€, the 1968 set movie is a gritty revenge thriller about an ex-con 'Slim' who vows to take vengeance on those who murdered his brother. Which as you can imagine such a vendetta would it somewhat complicates matters with his girlfriend, whom he is set to marry. Deadline say Casey Affleck is expected to play the unfortunate brother (beating out Garrett Hedlund, Taylor Kitsch & Channing Tatum who were all in the mix) and Variety say Zoe Saldana has landed the lead female role of Slim's ex-wife, who is married to the town sheriff. The legendary Robert Duvall is also on board as Slim's Uncle. In what could set up a battle of the intense method actors, Viggo Mortensen is eyeing the villain role opposite Bale. The script has been compared to the tone of €œNo Country For Old Men€ and appeared at number 5 on the 2008 Black List. It was written by Brad Inglesby, a then 27 year old AFI grad who was still living with his parents and working for his father€™s insurance business in Pennsylvania when he wrote it. The movie has to move fast as Bale only has a short window of opportunity to make the film before joining the elusive Terrence Malick to make the two-film epic "Lawless" and "Knight of Cups" later in the summer. Expect more castings soon. Ridley Scott's Scott Free and Leonardo DiCaprio produces. They themselves nearly made the movie a few years back as director/star respectively.
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Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.