Corona | Coming Attractions

For those out there that have seen the criminally overlooked western drama The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, this story will give you a warm glow: Brad Pitt and director Andrew Dominik are reteaming again for a new picture.

The project is called Cogan's Trade and unlike the serious and somber Jesse picture that they worked on together, this new movie is a comedy set in the world of gangsters and organized crime. Pitt would play a mob enforcer named Jackie Cogan who gets called in after a high stakes poker game set up by the mob is robbed. Cogan has to find out who did the deed and get his bosses' money back.

Here's where the project gets cooler: according to The Hollywood Reporter (psst; nice makeover on your website and magazine, guys), director Dominik wants to get a few more of the Jesse James crew reunited for the new gig. The names that THR has heard as being interested are Casey Affleck (who played Robert Ford) and Sam Rockwell, both of whom would be cool as hell to get involved with this. And also being mentioned as possibles are Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) and Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac). In very short order this could be a major new project shaping up on our horizons.

The names all make Cogan's Trade sound really appealing, and that's precisely what its producers and financiers are hoping for. Y'see, there's this annual industry event about to take place called the American Film Market. It's a shopping convention for studios and distributors from around the world, a place where film development companies and financiers go to hawk their projects, hoping to sell some distribution rights and get some much needed return on their investment. Expect to hear more news from the AFM as it opens its doors for business beginning today.