A few weeks ago Jeremy Renner got his first co-stars in the thriller Kill The Messenger, Rosemarie Dewitt and Paz Vega. Now the cast has swelled massively with a slew of great names, as Collider reports that Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Michael Sheen, Andy Garcia, Tim Blake Nelson, Robert Patrick, Barry Pepper and Oliver Platt have all signed on for the movie.
The movie is based on the true story of Gary Webb, a San Jose Mercury News reporter who helped expose the CIA’s involvement in a drug smuggling operation with Nicaraguan rebels in the 1980s. In an effort to discredit the writer, the agency launched a smear campaign before the journalist tragically his own life.
There’s no news on exactly who the cast members will play.
Shooting has already begun, with Michael Cuesta directing from a screenplay by Peter Landesman, which is adapted from Gary Webb’s book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, as well as Nick Schou’s Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb.
Earlier this year it was reported that James Franco was in talks to play the male lead of Chuck Traynor in the Linda Lovelace biopic, Lovelace. However a deal never came together and the part went to Peter Sarsgard instead. However Franco may still pop up and he’s now in talks for a cameo role as Hugh Hefner, reuniting him with the directors of Howl, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman.