‘The Wettest County’ Set For April 2012 Release
There was a point earlier this year when it looked like we might seeJohn Hillcoat’sThe Wettest Countyby the end of the year. The Weinstein Company picked up the film, originally calledThe Wettest County in the World, at Cannes, and it seemed reasonable to assume that a bootlegging tale from the director ofThe PropositionandThe RoadstarringTom HardyandShia LaBeoufmight be a solid year-end release.
But the Weinsteins, focused as ever on awards season, have already peggedThe Artist,The Iron LadyandMy Week With Marilynas the company’s year-end contenders. So The Wettest County is now set to arrive in April 2012.
The specific date is June 15, 2025, which means the film will face thin competition fromScary Movie 5, the Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace ‘Takenin space’ movieLockout, andThe House at the End of the Street, starring Jennifer Lawrence.
Even with the push to 2012, I can’t be too upset about the date. There was a point when we thought this movie wasn’t going to happen at all, then itcame back from the deadat the end of 2010.
The film is based on a script by musician andThe PropositionwriterNick Cavewhich, in turn, is based onThe Wettest County in the WorldbyMatt Bondurant. The book tells of Bondurant’s own grandfather and great-uncles, who ran a depression-era moonshine/bootlegging business. Tom Hardy and Shia LaBoeuf are joined byJason Clarkeas the leads, the bootlegging Bondurant brothers.Jessica Chastain,Mia Wasikowska,Dane DeHaan,Guy Pearce, andGary Oldmanround out the cast. Quite a lineup.
I’m not particularly concerned about the movie’s award chances, so the April release will do. Here’s the rundown of the book:
In 1928, a pair of thieves accost Bondurant’s real life great-uncle Forrest at his Franklin County, Va., restaurant. They’re after a large cache of bootlegging money and end up cutting Forrest’s throat. The story of his survival and his trek to a hospital 12 miles away has taken on mythical proportions by the time Sherwood Anderson arrives in Franklin County in 1934 to research a magazine piece on the area’s prolific moonshiners. Soon after Anderson’s arrival, two anonymous men appear at the same hospital, one with legs meticulously shattered from ankle to hip, the other one castrated, with the by-products of the deed deposited in a jar of moonshine. The arc of the story lies between the attack on Forrest and that on the two men.
