By It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from John Hillcoat’s production of The Wettest County in the World, but the Prohibition-era film now has an official release date of April 20, 2012. Competition is frail that weekend: Scary Movie 5, Lockout, The House at the End of the Street, and some aging palooka with early-stage glaucoma who believes he has one good fight left in him.
Based on the novel of the same name by Matt Bondurant, the film concerns three brothers (based on Bondurant’s own grandfather and great-uncles) running a bootlegging business in Franklin County, Virginia. The film stars Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, and Jason Clarke, with Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, and the ubiquitous (and I don’t mind one bit) Jessica Chastain.
The film’s screenplay is by Nick Cave — Birthday Party frontman, leader of the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, and a fine author as well. This is yet another collaboration between the musician and Hillcoat. Cave wrote the screenplay for The Proposition and also did the scores for The Proposition and The Road with Dirty Three’s Warren Ellis. Hopefully Cave and Ellis do the score for this film as well, and by that I mean they damn well better do the score.
[Via /Film]