Movies based on real-life stories have been good to Matthew McConaughey in recent times. He won an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club and received praise for his small role in The Wolf Of Wall Street. He's looking into history again, starting negotiations to appear in White Boy Rick.
'71 director Yann Demange is looking to have the drama shooting early next year, working from a new draft of the script by Steve Kloves. White Boy Rick focuses on Richard Wershe, Jr., who at the tender age of 14 became an undercover informant for local and federal law agencies before himself going on to become a major drug dealer in the mid-1980s. At 17, he was arrested with 17 pounds of cocaine in his possession and jailed for life, but there remain questions about how his early work as an informant contributed to his descent into crime.
McConaughey is making a deal to play Wershe's father, a factory worker trying to keep his family fed as the automotive industry in Detroit crumbles. Before he reports to the set next year, McConaughey will be seen in another controversial true story, Gold, on 3 February. And there is also Sing, which, with its animated tale of animals entering a singing competition, is probably not based on real events. But who knows? That one will be with us on 27 January.
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