5. Christian Bale To Play Travis McGee In The Deep Blue Good-By
After playing Batman and then stepping into Academy Award-nominated roles (which included one win), Christian Bale appears to have set his sights on a potential new franchise. According to Variety, Bale is in talks to star as Travis McGee in an adaptation of the 1964 John D. MacDonald novel, The Deep Blue Good-By. MacDonald wrote 21 Travis McGee novels between 1964 and 1984, giving this series plenty of material to mine from. Unlike other detectives in crime fiction, McGee is not a police officer or licensed private detective. Instead, he's a self-proclaimed "salvage consultant," who recovers others' lost property for a fee (and throws in a good helping of bad-guy-fighting and woman-wooing). The Deep Blue Good-By is shaping up under producers Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson-Killoran (The Ides of March), and Amy Robinson (Julie & Julia), from director James Mangold (The Wolverine). Mangold will put his currently-gestating Wolverine sequel on the back burner to helm The Deep Blue Good-By, which was written by fellow crime author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone). Check out the synopsis for The Deep Blue Good-By here:
TRAVIS MCGEE. Hes a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. Hes also a knight errant whos wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: hell help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.