The ‘Bad Boys’ writer will direct the action-comedy — based on Harry Hurwitz’s 1982 film — which is heading to the market in Cannes.
A trio of Oscar-winning legends are coming together for Bad Boys writer George Gallo’s upcoming action-comedy The Comeback Trail.
Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones and Morgan Freeman have boarded the film, which is heading the Cannes market next week with Storyboard Media repping international sales.
The Comeback Trail sees De Niro play Max Barber who, in debt to Freeman’s mob boss, creates an insurance fraud by casting washed-up, suicidal cowboy/movie star Duke Montana (Jones) in a poorly written Western with the intention of killing him during the first days of filming. Surprisingly, Duke somehow rises to the occasion, thereby redeeming his past misdeeds, and brings Max and others along on the same journey.
Josh Posner co-wrote the screenplay with Gallo, which is based on the 1982 film of the same name, written, directed and produced by the late Harry Hurwitz. Shooting begins in June in New Mexico. Donald Pemrick and Dean Fronk are handling casting.
The Comeback Trail is being produced by Steven Tyler Sahlein, March On Productions’ Richard Salvatore (The Big Wedding, The Poison Rose) and David Ornston, along with Joy Sirott Hurwitz and Julie Lott Gallo. The film is being financed and executive produced by Empire Media Partners’ Justin Calvillo and John DeMarco, Storyboard Media’s Philip Kim, Patrick Hibler and Elisabeth Costa de Beauregard, along with Ben Ruedinger and Joerg Fischer.
De Niro, Jones and Freeman have experience working together before (De Niro and Jones in 2013’sThe Family, De Niro and Morgan in Last Vegas the same year, and Jones and Freeman 2017’s Just Getting Started). Gallo and De Niro’s relationship goes back to the 1988 buddy cop hit, Midnight Run, while Gallo’s last film, The Poison Rose, starring Freeman and John Travolta, is being released by Lionsgate on Memorial Day weekend.
Gallo and Posner are repped by Industry Entertainment and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown and Passman. De Niro is represented by CAA and Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks P.C. Jones is represented by CAA and Jacobson, Russell, Saltz, Nassim & de la Torre, LLP. Freeman is represented by CAA and Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern, LLP.
Empire Media Partners; Producers Sahlein and Salvatore; and Executive Producers Calvillo and DeMarco are represented by Harris Tulchin of Harris Tulchin & Associates.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
