Elvis and Dune: Part Two actor Austin Butler is to star in Darren Aronofsky’s crime thriller, Caught Stealing.
Austin Butler has developed a taste for working with directors of a certain merit, and you can’t argue with the results. Since 2019, Butler has acted in films by Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Baz Luhrman (in his breakout role as Elvis Presley) and Dennis Villeneuve. The latter saw him take the role of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in the recently-released Dune: Part Two, and there’s no arguing that he was able to take a relatively limited amount of screen time and produce an antagonist who will live long in the memory.
Next, Butler has The Bikeriders coming up, directed by Jeff Nichols. Then there’s Eddington with Ari Aster, not to mention those rumours regarding a role in Michael Mann’s upcoming sequel to Heat. It’s an impressive list and yet, according to reports, Butler has added another auteur filmmaker to his list, with the news that he will be working with Darren Aronofsky on an upcoming project.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the pair will be working together on the crime thriller Caught Stealing. Sony has acquired the package, which is based on the book by Charlie Huston, and per the logline, it “follows Hank Thompson, a burned-out former baseball player, as he’s unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of ‘90s NYC.’
Whether it’s the striking appearance that he asopted for Dune: Part Two or the stories about forever being in character as Elvis Presley, Butler has come up with some memorable performances in his short career. The thought of him working with Aronofsky, a director renowned for stretching and challenging the abilities of his actors, is an intriguing one indeed.
Whether it’s directing Jennifer Lawrence in mother! or Brendan Fraser in The Whale, Aronofsky often takes his cast to new heights and given Butler’s commitment to the roles he’s played thus far, it’s exciting to think about what a collaboration between the two could look like. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
