The search for a director who can make Gangster Squad, the tale of 1940s mobsters in LA and the police task force who take them down, has been going on for a while now. But it would seem that Warner Bros. has found its man, entering negotiations with Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer to wield the megaphone.
Fleischer made a splash with his first feature film, blending laughs, violence, horror and Bill Murray being effortlessly cool. Since then, he’s become attached to a Zombieland sequel, Mafia comedy Babe in the Woods and at least two or three other untitled projects bubbling away in development. And he’s currently editing the pizza/crime comedy 30 Minutes or Less, which is due to arrive next August.
Assuming he finally agrees to the Gangster Squad task, it’ll be a real change of pace for him – a gritty, tough, fact-based tale of an elite group of cops who aim to take down organized crime kingpins by any means necessary.
And the list of those linked to the assignment in the past is long, with Ben Affleck, Paul Greengrass, Francis Lawrence and Greg Berlanti all approached. Darren Aronofsky probably came closest, before deciding to go all superhero sequel on us and reunite with old mucker Hugh Jackman for The Wolverine.