Shia LaBeouf And Tom Hardy In THE WETTEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD

Back in January, director John Hillcoat who helmed the hauntingly beautiful adaptation of one of my favorite books of all time, The Road said that his project THE PROMISED LAND a.k.a adaptation of THE WETTEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD, based on a true story novel by Matt Bondurant, fell apart. At one point, the project attracted A-list names like Shia LaBeouf, Scarlett Johansson, Ryan Gosling, Paul Dano, Amy Adams and Michael Shannon. Most of those names aren’t attached to the project anymore but it seems like things are going back on track..

24 Frames has heard that Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy are attached to star in THE WETTEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD as a couple of bootleggers in the 1920s. With screenplay by Nick Cave, the project will be independently financed and produced by Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher of Red Wagon (Jarhead, Girl Interrupted). Production is expected to start in Spring 201

Here’s the book‘s official synopsis..

“Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant’s grandfather and two granduncles, The Wettest County in the World is a gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder. The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after. Forrest, the eldest brother, is fierce, mythically indestructible, and the consummate businessman; Howard, the middle brother, is an ox of a man besieged by the horrors he witnessed in the Great War; and Jack, the youngest, has a taste for luxury and a dream to get out of Franklin. Driven and haunted, these men forge a business, fall in love, and struggle to stay afloat as they watch their family die, their father’s business fail, and the world they know crumble beneath the Depression and drought.

White mule, white lightning, firewater, popskull, wild cat, stump whiskey, or rotgut — whatever you called it, Franklin County was awash in moonshine in the 1920s. When Sherwood Anderson, the journalist and author of Winesburg, Ohio, was covering a story there, he christened it the “wettest county in the world.” In the twilight of his career, Anderson finds himself driving along dusty red roads trying to find the Bondurant brothers, piece together the clues linking them to “The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy,” and break open the silence that shrouds Franklin County.

In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men — their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires — to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.”