Following up Tracks, John Curran has found his next feature, and he’s finalizing his cast. Jason Clarke is being joined by Kate Mara and Ed Helms for Chappaquiddick, Deadline reports. It tells the real-life story of the fateful night senator Ted Kennedy (Clarke) lost control of his vehicle and drove it off a bridge, overturning the vehicle and trapping his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne (Mara) while he escaped. Instead of calling the police, Kennedy called upon his cousin Joe Gargan (Helms) and a friend, whom he told to go back to the scene and try to find her body. While Gargan was loyal, he also found great moral issue in the situation and eventually convinced Kennedy to call the police the next morning. The script is penned by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, and is being produced by Mark Ciardi and Campbell McInnes. Mara has had a lot on her plate, as she just wrapped Luke Scott‘s sci-fi thriller Morgan, while Helms is currently shooting the Dito Montiel comedy The Clapper.
Next up, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford will reunite on screen for the first time since 1979’s The Electric Horseman, Deadline reports. They will star in Ritesh Batra‘s Our Souls At Night. The film is adapted from a novel, and is scripted by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Webber, the duo behind 500 Days of Summer. The novel is described as, “A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future.” Redford and Fonda were reportedly looking to work together, with Redford controlling the book and setting up the deal with Netflix, who will distribute the latest film from the director of The Lunchbox.
Lastly, The Hollywood Reporter states that the breakout star of The Neon Demon and Mad Max Fury Road, Abbey Lee, has been cast alongside Riley Keough and Caleb Landry Jones in writer-director Justin Kelly‘s currently untitled next project. The story follows a girl named Alice (Lee) returning to her estranged brother’s home (Jones) unannounced, where strange visions, the return of a lover (Keough), and Alice’s own paranoia drive the siblings to grip tight to reality, as mysterious circumstances engulf them. The film is currently in production in New York.
In preparation for their roles, Kelly has had strong things to say about his young cast: “Abbey, Riley and Caleb have proven themselves to be some of the most talented, versatile actors working today, capable of imbuing tough, challenging characters with emotional depth and empathy. They are truly the perfect cast to bring this twisted, mysterious story to life.” Kelly, director of the still-undistributed I Am Michael, will be re-teaming with producers Jordan Yale Levine and Scott Levenson from King Cobra, which has been generating some critical buzz. Lee and Keough are reuniting after shared screentime in Fury Road, while Jones will soon appear in A24’s American Honey and is currently on the Starz original series The Girlfriend Experience.