A couple of years ago, after a pair of sci-fi flicks in Oblivion and Tron: Legacy, Joseph Kosinski was turning to something different with The Trials of White Boy Rick, about Detroit gangsta Richard Wershe Jr. We haven't heard anything about it since then, and we can probably assume it's dead because a new project on Wershe is on the way, and it has a totally different director and a big name star in Matthew McConaughey.
Deadline reports Yann Demage will direct White Boy Rick with McConaughey in talks to headline. Demage isn't exactly a household name but he emerged with the kinetic Irish thriller, '71. Logan and Noah Miller wrote the Black List screenplay telling the true story of Wershe, a white drug dealer who nevertheless thrived in the Detroit ghettos of the 1980s, which was dominated by African-Americans. Little did they know he was also an informant for the feds. McConaughey won't play Wershe; instead he'll play his blue collar father who tries to keep the family together while the Detroit automotive industry collapses.
Shooting should begin early next year, and this sounds more promising than the Kosinski project, if only because it actually seems to be happening.
