Nonagenarian actor-director-producer (and sometimes composer) Clint Eastwood has his next project lined up according to a report in Deadline. Co-producing with fellow 90-year-old Al Ruddy, the novel Cry Macho has been in Eastwood’s orbit for decades. He will reportedly direct and star in the film.
Written by N. Richard Nash in 1975, it concerns a washed-out rodeo star whose ex-boss hires him to go to Mexico and bring back his young son from an alcoholic mother. Nash is best known for writing the play The Rainmaker in 1954.
Variety reports that Eastwood was eyeing the project in the late 1980s, but ended up reprising his “Dirty” Harry Callahan character in The Dead Pool instead. That’s the one that has Jim Carrey and Liam Neeson shooting a Guns N’ Roses video.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was attached to star in an adaptation of the novel as his return to acting after his tenure as the Governor of California, but the project fell through.
Eastwood, known for working quickly and inexpensively (and telling actors “whenever you’re ready” instead of calling “action!”), has maintained a busy, if curious, workload of late. Last year’s Richard Jewell was a considerable box office dud, though it did have some notable critical advocates.
2018’s The Mule, Eastwood’s last on-screen appearance, fared much better financially, and also inspired one of the stranger Saturday Night Live bits. (It’s not even a bit, it’s just Pete Davidson and John Mulaney talking about the movie.)
Deadline reports that the Cry Macho script was written by author Nash, who died in 2000, and Nick Schenk, who co-wrote The Mule and earlier Eastwood vehicle Gran Torino.
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