For all the struggle Scott Cooper(Crazy Heart) has had getting Out of the Furnace rolling, he has to be pleased with the incredible amount of buzz it's generated in the last few weeks of casting. Now that production is underway, beginning last week, the final pieces of the puzzle have finally been confirmed.
Woody Harrelson and Forest Whitaker are officially on board the vengeance thriller, according to a press release from Relativity hyping the start of filming. Harrelson got the gig last week, and as expected is playing the primary heel of the film, a gang leader by the name of Harlan DeGroat. Whitaker will playing the county sheriff, and not a sleazy bookie as previously reported. They'll join Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Zoe Saldana, and Sam Shepard in the film taking place in a rundown mill town of Pennsylvania. Bale and Affleck play brothers who desperately want to escape their surroundings, but when Bale's character is thrown in prison due to a cruel twist of fate, Affleck gets wrapped up in a crime ring and pays a heavy price. When Bale gets out he immediately starts looking for the men who hurt his brother.
I liked Crazy Heart, but Cooper's direction didn't make enough of an impression to make him a guy worth paying much attention to. That said, this sounds fantastic and has a cast that can't be ignored. Plus it'll be interesting to see how Cooper handles considerably darker material like this.
