After the struggles he had making The Road and the financial issues that have plagued his latest effort, it’s heartening to see the tide turn for filmmaker John Hillcoat, who has now added Guy Pearce, Jason Clarke and Gary Oldman and Mia Wasikowska to the increasingly sprawling cast of Wettest County in the World.
Nick Cave scribbled the screenplay based on Matt Bondurant’s tome about his granddad and two great-uncles, real-life bootleggers in Prohibition-era Virginia who battled the law and tried to carve out their own slice of the American dream. Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy are already aboard as two of the brothers, while Clarke will play the third.
Jessica Chastain, who jumped on shortly after LaBeouf and Hardy, is Hardy’s love interest and Wasikowska is appearing as a local Mennonite girl who catches LaBeouf’s eye.
Hillcoat veteran Pearce, meanwhile, is a hard-nosed deputy who cracked down violently on the boys, while Oldman will be on the other side of the law, playing a gangster who gives the trio their first big score delivering hooch.
Now that he has an amazing cast committed and ready, Hillcoat is preparing to crank the cameras starting February 28 in Georgia.