With George Clooney and Julia Roberts in place as leads, Jodie Foster has been gathering the ensemble she needs around them for new, finance-flavoured drama Money Monster. Her newest recruit is prolific character actor and Breaking Bad veteran Giancarlo Esposito.
**Money Monster **features Clooney as Lee Gates, a loud, gregarious financial TV host who offers stock advice on his eponymous hit cable TV show in a style that would probably make Robert Peston blanch. Roberts will be Nancy Fenn, the director and executive producer of the show.
When Gates makes a bad call on a trade and throws a company’s future into doubt, Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell) a blue-collar worker sick of the damage still being done by Wall Street, decides to take Gates hostage on air to increase a stock’s value and expose the corruption behind the financial market. Esposito will be NYPD Captain Marcus Powell, the officer in charge of keeping the situation under control even as events become more dangerous. With Dominic West, Caitriona Balfe and Darri Ingolfsson also among the cast, Foster is shooting the movie right now.
Esposito, who was also seen in Alex Cross, will next show up in **The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials **(out September 18) and Jon Favreau’s take on **The Jungle Book **(where he’ll be more heard than seen), which will hit screens next year.