Bradley Cooper is in talks to join director David O Russell’s American Bullshit. (No, it is not another sequel in the American Pie franchise.) He’ll be appearing opposite Christian Bale should the film make it into production. This will mark the second time that each actor has worked with Russell. Bale starred in last year’s The Fighter while Cooper will be seen in Russell’s upcoming The Silver Linings Playbook.
It was only a few weeks ago that Russell denied any active involvement in the project or that Bale had been cast. However, the reportage of the director signing on to a biopic about Providence, RI mayor Buddy Cianci earlier this week mentioned the project and today’s news confirms it.
Word of the casting comes out of a report at Deadline that the picture is close to securing funding from indie financer Megan Ellison. If Ellison and producers Charles Roven and Richard Suckle come to terms, the $30 to $40 million productions could get in front of cameras as early as next January, schedules permitting. Russell currently has a few other projects on his plate that he may choose to do first including The Mission for Warner brothers and the aforementioned Buddy Cianci project.
Although a relative newcomer, Ellison has already played a part in getting the upcoming projects realized – John Hillcoat’s Lawless, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty and Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmasters among others.
Placing eighth on the 2010 Black List, Eric Warren Singer’s screenplay is a darkly comic retelling of the FBI’s “Abscam” sting operation that targeted a number of corrupt Congressmen in the 1970s and `80s. The entire project was overseen by a former conman the FBI had hired specifically to run the operation.
Sony will handle the film’s release and you can bet that they will want to change the title, if only to shorten it down to American BS.
