Originally Posted by slashfilm.com

I can’t quite express how happy I am that The Wettest County in the World is really moving forward. The film was in development for months last year before seemingly being killed off just as the calendar turned. Now it is happening again, with John Hillcoat (The Road, The Proposition) still directing Shia LaBeouf from a script by Nick Cave. Tom Hardy has also signed on, and now the production has scored one of the rising stars of whom we’ll likely see much in the next few years: Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life).

THR reports that Jessica Chastain will play Tom Hardy’s love interest, “a big city woman now living in a small town who at one time was mixed up with gangsters.” It’s a role that was once linked to Amy Adams, and in which Scarlett Johansson had shown interest in 2009.

The Wettest County in the World is based on Matt Bondurant’s novel / family memoir, in which the author’s grandfather and great-uncles run a bootlegging operation during the Great Depression and Prohibition.

In 1928, a pair of thieves accost Bondurant’s real life great-uncle Forrest at his Franklin County, Va., restaurant. They’re after a large cache of bootlegging money and end up cutting Forrest’s throat. The story of his survival and his trek to a hospital 12 miles away has taken on mythical proportions by the time Sherwood Anderson arrives in Franklin County in 1934 to research a magazine piece on the area’s prolific moonshiners. Soon after Anderson’s arrival, two anonymous men appear at the same hospital, one with legs meticulously shattered from ankle to hip, the other one castrated, with the by-products of the deed deposited in a jar of moonshine. The arc of the story lies between the attack on Forrest and that on the two men.

Originally Posted by slashfilm.com

The cast of John Hillcoat‘s The Wettest County in the World keeps getting more wonderful. Revived from limbo a few months ago, the film was already set to star Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf as the core members of the bootlegging Bondurant family and Jessica Chastain as a close associate. Jason Clarke signed on not long ago.

Now Guy Pearce and Gary Oldman are on board, and Mia Wasikowska, who has been rumored for a few weeks, is confirmed as well.

THR reports from the European Film Market in Berlin where, after a Sundance that was characterized by strong sales, it looks like we can expect to see a lot of dealmaking. In this case, we’ve got an expanding cast for a film that was scripted by Nick Cave based on Matt Bondurant‘s novel / family history of Virginia bootleggers during Prohibition.

Guy Pearce will be “an overly violent deputy who comes down hard on the Bondurants.” Gary Oldman will be “a gangster who engages the boys to deliver alcohol.” Jessica Chastain is ““a big city woman now living in a small town who at one time was mixed up with gangsters.” Mia Wasikowska would be the love interest for Shia LaBeouf.

Originally Posted by GoldenJCJ (Post 11092913)

The title is still two letters too long...

Originally Posted by mcfly (Post 11166239)

Were the Weinstein's on the phone within seconds of Malick's film changing it's name from Lawless? :lol:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk/...-malick-2.html

Originally Posted by Solid Snake PAC (Post 11163995)

Update: This film is no longer called Lawless. Malick gave the name up to the film previously known as The Wettest County. They asked for it from Malick, Malick likes Hillcoat...so he said yes. He's getting a special thank you in the movie from what the producer said.

Sooooooo we're back to untitled. Soooooooo I think it'd be appropriate to merge now.