Al Pacino and writer/director Barry Levinson must love working together. They collaborated on HBO drama You Don’t Know Jack, and though Pacino has only just signed up for true-life gangster tale Gotti: Three Generations, which Levinson is aboard to re-write and direct, the pair is squeezing in another project before that one happens, teaming on an adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel The Humbling.
The chance came about because Gotti will have to wait for Levinson to finish overhauling the script with James Toback. He’d already committed to co-write and direct The Humbling, so with Pacino starring, it’ll slot into place before the mobster movie gets made.
Levinson adapted the 2009 book with Buck Henry and Michel Zebede, and the plot finds once-famed stage actor Simon Axler (Pacino) suddenly having a crisis of confidence in his talent. After savage reviews of his latest Shakespearian performances, he sinks into a dark depression and contemplates suicide. But he’s brought back to life through kicking off a relationship with a younger woman.
Though the rest of the cast still needs to be cast, it sounds like they’ll be shooting before too long...