Sam Rockwell has nabbed himself a new role, as Deadline reports that he’s signed up to star in the indie drama The Eel. The movie will reunite him with The Way, Way Back producers Kevin J. Walsh, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.
Roberto Bentivegna is set to write and direct the movie, the script for which ended up in The Black List in 2012, which is about an escaped convict (Rockwell) who is drawn into a corrupt sheriff’s plot to kidnap the heiress of an oil fortune, which complicates his quest for freedom.
Kevin J. Walsh commented,”Nat, Jim and I want to foster other directors and writers with this new company, and Roberto’s film gives Sam the role of a criminal on the run that reminded us of Drive and Cool Hand Luke. The Way, Way Back was also a Black List script, and that one had everyone from Alexander Payne to Thomas Bezucha and Shawn Levy in the mix but it took us eight years to core it down and take a grass roots approach to get it made, and that’s what we’re doing here. Last year’s festival was insane, the movie screened at 3, and by the time we got off the stage after the Q&A, I turned on my phone and had 500 e-mails and five offers, already at $4 million. My fiancé and my friends from Boston were here, and while I got them to the party, I went right to the condo with the financiers, CAA and WME, and we didn’t leave the condo until 6 in the morning. I woke up the filmmakers to tell them this film we’d made for $4.75 million had sold for $9.75 million domestic and $11.3 million with foreign. Given how long it took to get it made, it was an unforgettable night.”
The movie will shoot this autumn.
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