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With the release of his new film, Argo, coming up this Friday, Ben Affleck seems to be having a pretty good week.
Argo is getting all kinds of critical acclaim, and there's even talk that it's an early contender for Best Picture. But the big news today is from Deadline, who reports that the star is in talks to lead the cast of Focus, a new movie from Crazy, Stupid, Love directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. They'll write and direct this film, which centers around "a veteran con man who gets involved with a newcomer to the grifter business. They become involved romantically but that becomes perilous in a business where they lie and cheat for a living. The complications of the encounter haunt them when they meet up again in the future."
Originally, the plan was to have Crazy, Stupid, Love stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone reunite for the third time on screen (following that film and the upcoming Gangster Squad), but it looks like they've traded two for one and scored Affleck instead. No word yet on the female lead, but whoever it is will probably have to be a huge star to keep Affleck on board.
It's not that wild a notion that Affleck would star in a movie he's not directing, even after his breakout success behind the camera. He has Runner Runner coming up with Justin Timberlake, that's being written by the guys behind Rounders and directed by The Lincoln Lawyer's Brad Furman, and of course he stars in Terrence Malick's contemplative To The Wonder, which has been making the festival rounds lately. While Focus sounds suspiciously like the Clive Owen-Julia Roberts starrer Duplicity, I have faith in Affleck's choices (that's something I never would have said in the early 2000s) and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with this project.
