David O Russell has Shutout on his slate, with Jenna Ortega and Robert De Niro set to star. More on the film here.
Back in the 1980s, Martin Scorsese went through a period of being a director for hire and being Martin Scorsese, the results were a joy to watch. Perhaps the most fun film to watch from the Goodfellas director’s ‘gun for hire’ era was 1986’s The Color Of Money, a thrilling sports drama starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise visiting smoky pool halls and parting locals from their hard-earned cash.
The pool hustling genre is a pretty shallow one and nothing has arrived in the decades since to spirit away The Color Of Money's crown. A couple of contenders tried at the turn of the century, including Pool Hall Junkies and Stickmen. It feels like a long, long time since we’ve even seen a high profile film in this genre though, so it’s interesting to learn that David O Russell is set to revive the pool hustle movie, with Robert De Niro and Jenna Ortega leading the cast.
Deadline has published a synopsis for the project, and it certainly seems to contain all the hallmarks of the genre: ‘The pic will follow Jake Kejeune (De Niro), one of the last masters of a vanishing craft — the pool hustler. Having lived and lost by the roll of a ball in smoky backroom halls, Jake encounters Mia (Ortega), a young prodigy whose raw, electrifying talent reignites a fire he thought long extinguished. Sensing a rare opportunity to shape a legend, Jake takes Mia under his wing, honing her instincts and sharpening her natural gift. Together, they plunge into the ruthless world of high-stakes pool, where the line between unimaginable fortune and devastating failure is razor-thin.’
David O Russell is known for coaxing some of the better De Niro performances of the past few years, while Ortega seems to be the star to cast at the moment. Case in point, she appears in A24’s Death Of A Unicorn which has just left UK cinemas and is almost instantly returning with Hurry Up Tomorrow, the loose remake of Misery that arrives just ten days from now.
David O Russell’s last film was 2022’s Amsterdam, a film that didn’t set the box office alight or have critics raving. But it did feel like a lot of movie for its $80m budget, given how well its historical setting was rendered and also given his outsized (and very starry) cast, led by Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington.
You’d think that a pool hall movie would be pretty cheap to make and with a star like Ortega on board who is increasingly being seen as one of the few bankable stars under 30, this project surely gives Russell a chance to claim a solid commercial return. It also becomes the filmmaker’s second sports drama in a row, following the yet-to-release Madden, starring Nicolas Cage as the legendary NFL commentator.
We’ll bring you more on Shutout as we hear it.
