Fresh form a successful awards season, including Best Movie Oscar for “Argo, Boston’s golden boy Ben Affleck will return to his roots to working a ‘Whitey’ Bulger project alongside his old friend Matt Damon.
This Boston project based on the story of the Winter Hill Gang boss now imprisoned after 16 years on the run from the law. Bulger became known in local folklore as a kind of Robin Hood-style character however he was allegedly the mastermind of a protection racket and has been indicted for 19 murders.
According to reports from the Boston Herald the movie will be written by Terence Winter, responsible for “Boardwalk Empire”. The movie will be directed by Affleck, responsible for “Gone Baby Gone” and “The Town” will direct and Matt Damon will star at James ‘Whitey’ Bulger.
Joyce Kulhawik, an entertainment reporter, who has followed Damon and Affleck’s career, since “Good Will Hunting” and before said “There are no two people better suited to the Whitey project than Ben and Matt.
“There is no way to tell a Boston story without being a part of the fabric of the place. And they know this city.”
In 1998 the pair won the Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen Oscar Award for the feel good movie.
However this dream team has competition in the shape of an upcoming movie “Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob” by Dick Lehr and Gerald O’Neill.
This proposed movie will be directed by Barry Levinson (“Rain Man” and “Diner”) and will star Johnny Depp as Whitey.
According to a “friend of Ben” he does not feel challenged by this parallel project. They told the Track “we are on track and nothing has changed.”
In the meantime Affleck is reportedly working on a script for Dennis Lehane’s “Live by Night”.
Here’s CBS Boston’s report on his big win
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