The last time they worked together, the result was the documentary I’m Still Here, but Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix are swapping raps for guns in fictional Western action in Far Bright Star{
Marking Affleck’s fiction directing debut, the new film, adapted by Damien Ober from Robert Olmstead’s 2009 novel, is set in 1916. Phoenix will be an aging cavalryman who is leading a posse on a hunt for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. But when the group is attacked and most of the men are killed, the cavalryman is left struggling to survive in the desert.
"This is a beautifully written story on pain and loss and the drive and resilience one finds within themselves to continue through the day," Affleck tells The Hollywood Reporter. There’s no word on other casting just yet, but it’ll be interesting to see the brothers-in-law team tackling something where the story is completely fictional, unlike I’m Not There, where we all totally believed that Phoenix was ditching acting for the life of a rap artist. No, we’re not rubbing our chins and trying not to giggle, really…
Phoenix was last seen in Woody Allen’s Irrational Man and is a producer on a new documentary CAMP, about an artistic sleep-away camp. Affleck has sea-borne drama The Finest Hours docking on January 29 and John Hillcoat’s crime thriller Triple 9 due on February 19.