Matthew McConaughey is currently filming the Civil War drama Free State of Jones, but that's not stopping him from lining up his next starring role. Deadline reports he's signed on to star in The Billionaire's Vinegar and it too has a historical context, but mostly it's about rich people who love their wine.
The film is based on Benjamin Wallace's best-selling nonfiction book, The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine, which tells of a scandal that had wine connoisseurs swishing and spitting in anger. When a member of the uber-wealthy Forbes family bought a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux for $156K at an auction in 1985, he was told they were part of Thomas Jefferson's private collection recovered in France. Billionaire Bill Koch (yes of the infamous Koch family) paid $500M for bottles of the wine, then spent double that amount investigating the wine's origins and the man who originally possessed them, music manager turned wine dealer Hardy Rodenstock. He would ultimately take Rodenstock to court for fraud. The script will be written by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, writers of Wanted and 3:10 to Yuma.
McConaughey will be seen next in Gus Van Sant's suicide drama, Sea of Trees.
