Casey Affleck, Robert Redford Re-Team With David Lowery For THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN

It’s been a hell of a year for everyone involved in this story. Robert Redford starred in David Lowery’s live-action Pete’s Dragon, a carefully crafted ode to childhood wonder, and Casey Affleck delivers one of the year’s best performances in the upcoming Manchester by the Sea. Now, Affleck joins Redford and his Ain’t Them Body Saints director Lowery for what is sure to be another noteworthy collaboration, the crime biopic The Old Man and the Gun.

Redford has been attached to the project for a number of years now, and with cameras set to roll next spring, he’ll finally play notorious criminal and escape artist Forrest “Woody” Tucker, whose eighteen prison breaks catch the eye and interest of a detective played by Affleck. Tucker was first imprisoned at the age of fifteen, but his criminal career spanned long enough for him to be played by an eighty-one year old Robert Redford, including a famous escape from San Quentin State Prison at the age of seventy.

The film is based on the 2003 New Yorker article of the same name (which you can read here if you’re a subscriber) and feels a lot like the “one for me” before Lowery’s next “one for them,” a live-action Peter Pan movie for Disney. Though given how well Pete’s Dragon turned out, all of the Upstream Color editor’s directorial efforts may end up feeling like personal triumphs once it’s all said and done.