Matt Damon and Ford v Ferrari director James Mangold (The Wolverine, Logan) are reportedly reuniting for a cop drama titled The Force based on the novel by author Don Winslow according to Deadline.
After Ford v Ferrari landed an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, Matt Damon and James Mangold are teaming again. Damon is attached to an adaptation of the 2017 Don Winslow bestseller The Force, which Mangold has been developing to direct for 20th Century Studios.
Damon is attached to play Denny Malone, a NYPD detective who runs an elite crime-fighting squad, but bends the law so often that he loses the line between good and evil and becomes ensnared in a pending corruption scandal. To stop the city’s long-simmering racial tensions from exploding, he must reconcile the idealistic guardian he still views himself to be, with the corrupt cop he’s become. He under siege from all sides: Harlem drug gangs, the mob he’s in bed with, the brother cops he’s about to destroy, the mayor’s office who fears what he knows and who he can implicate, the federal investigators who want to put him behind bars. But most of all, he struggles with the Faustian bargain on the table that will require him to testify against his loyal but dirty team, weighing loyalty to them over his own family.
The recent version of the script is being worked on by Mangold and Scott Frank, the two worked together previously on Logan.
James Mangold has been developing the film for years and when the project stalled he pivoted to make the racing drama Ford v Ferrari instead, which is now nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
Mangold is no stranger to cop dramas as he tackled the fantastic film Cop Land starring Sly Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, and Robert De Niro. Stallone playing a small-town New Jersey sheriff that helps take down a group of corrupt New York City cops that happen to live in his sleepy town that is only a stone’s throw away from the big city.
The last Don Winslow adaptation was Oliver Stone’s messy Savages, but there is more potential with Mangold being behind this new project.
SOURCE: DEADLINE
