It looks like Damien Chazelle’s next film is locking in some serious heat. According to Deadline, Cillian Murphy and Daniel Craig are both in negotiations to star in the director’s next project, which remains untitled for now, but it’s rumored to be set in a prison.
Chazelle, who wrote the script, will direct and produce the film alongside Olivia Hamilton under their Wild Chickens Productions banner. Paramount Pictures is set to distribute. If Murphy and Craig close their deals, production is expected to kick off later this year.
The new film marks a pivot for Chazelle, who had been developing an Evel Knievel biopic that had Leonardo DiCaprio circling the lead role. But after that fell through, he returned to this prison-set drama.
It’s not surprising the script drew such immediate interest. As the report notes, “As with any Chazelle feature, A-list talent is always circling given his track record; this case was no different, with Murphy and Craig high on the project following a meeting with Chazelle.”
Murphy, fresh off his Oscar win for Oppenheimer, just wrapped The Peaky Blinders movie The Immortal Man for Netflix and recently appeared in Small Things Like These.
Daniel Craig, meanwhile, earned critical acclaim for his role in A24’s Queer and will soon reprise his Benoit Blanc role in Wake Up Dead Man, the next chapter in the Knives Out series.
