Ben Affleck Drops ‘Focus,’ Will Next Direct ‘Live By Night’
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WithGone Baby Gone, The Townand now the Oscar-nominatedArgo,Ben Affleckthe director has set a high bar for his career behind the camera. That means choosing a next project is crucial and several have crossed Affleck’s desk sinceArgowas released. It seems he’s now put them in order.
The actorwas to star alongsideKristen Stewart in the filmFocus, but recently pulled out of that film so he could commitall his time to preparingLive By Nightas his next directorial project. The film, based a novel byDennis Lehane, is about a young man during the Prohibition who falls deep into the world of organized crime. Affleck is writing, producing, will direct and star.
See Affleck’s reasoning for leavingFocusand focusing onLive By Nightbelow.
The information came from a new interview Affleck did withMTV. It’s the second part of the interview.
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And here’s the quote:
I’m doing a movie calledLive By Nightand I’m trying to meet this schedule in order to do it, in order to meet the back end so that I can have it released at the right time, and I just hadn’t gotten enough writing done and it became clear that if I took that job and was in Buenos Aires for three months, I was gonna miss the deadline. I had to choose between getting the movie out when I want to or doing this one, so reluctantly I chose the [former].
Though we haven’t heard anything about a release date or start date onLive By Night(in fact, we weren’t even sure what Affleck’s next projet would be till now) it seems Affleck is already working on a pretty tight deadline. That deadline, and dropping out ofFocus, makes it all but certainLive By Nightwill start shooting later this year and be his next project.
For more onLive By Night,which at one time hadLeonardo DiCaprio attached to star, head toits Amazon page.
Does this seem like a good fit for Affleck? Are you disappointed he won’t tackleThe Standor one of his Matt Damon projects next?
