The producers of watery whodunit Riptide would appear to be reaching for the stars in terms of casting. Or at least, reaching for the Big Book of Star Names What People Have Heard Of. According to Pajiba, offers for the boat-set thriller are out to Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf.
Boasting a script originated by Spooks scribe Richard McBrien, but recently given a thorough polish by The Queen’s Peter Morgan, Riptide follows the mystery of what happens to a group of people aboard a ship called the Nautica. A handyman, a young stock broker and the financial guru’s girlfriend are all involved in an incident that leaves one of the men dead and the woman relocated to a hotel nearby. Cue the theme music to Poirot/Miss Marple etc and an investigator arriving on board to untangle the various stories as to what actually happened.
Little is known about who might play what just yet, though the site believes Pitt is being sought to play the investigator, while LaBeouf could channel all that research he did for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps as the stock broker. There’s no director attached just yet, though Summit Entertainment is hunting one down right now.
That Pitt and LaBeouf are in the filmmakers’ sights is no real surprise: just about every project going reaches out to the biggest/hottest names first, before eventually tumbling down the list of possible thesps until someone bites. So don’t go thinking that either actor is attached just yet.