His second directorial venture The Town has turn out to be a good money spinner for the studio. Now Warner Bros is on the look out to get Ben Affleck for another project. Warner is really pleased with what he has delivered with the minimal budget. They have asked him to check out Tales from the Gangster Squad.
It is a screenplay about a secret squad of mercenary LAPD officers who tried to run gangster Mickey Cohen out of town in the 1940’s. Here is a small synopsis of the film.
Cohen, for those unfamiliar, started out as hired muscle for Al Capone in Chicago, but blossomed as a mogul after being sent to Los Angeles by Murder, Inc. kingpin Meyer Lansky to surveille Bugsy Siegel, with whom Cohen helped set up the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas and ran its sports-betting operation. He also ran a panoply of L.A. businesses, presumably as fronts to launder money — including floral shops, paint stores, nightclubs, casinos, gas stations, a haberdashery, and an ice-cream parlor — before getting busted for tax evasion in 1950 and serving four years in federal prison.
The originality of the script will be perfect for Ben Affleck to look into. It is based on a series of LA Times articles by journalist Paul Lieberman, the script itself is by former South Center LA Cop Will Beall, who is also a novelist and TV writer. A film about LA cops set in LA, written by a former LA cop.
Ben Affleck also has another project in the pipeline, which will star his old buddy Matt Damon in a major role.
Source: Vulture
