While he’s been busy fending off the Decepticons and running away from explosions in the latest Transformers pic, Shia LaBeouf has also been seeking some slightly more challenging projects to fill his schedule going forward. He’s wrapped work on John Hillcoat’s crime drama The Wettest County in the World and has now jumped aboard Robert Redford’s next directorial job, The Company You Keep.
Based on a script by Haywire/The Limey writer Lem Dobbs, which itself is adapted from Neil Gordon’s novel, Company will follow a former US domestic terrorist and Weather Underground militant (Redford) who has been hunted by the FBI for 30 years. He’s forced to break cover and go on the run when his fake identity is shattered by a determined young journalist (LaBeouf) who is itching to get his story. Cue a nationwide manhunt…
Voltage Pictures, which helped bring The Hurt Locker to the world, is backing this one, which Redford has been developing for a while after nabbing the rights to the novel. “This is an edge-of-your-seat thriller about real Americans who stood for their beliefs, thinking they were patriots and defending their country's ideals against their government,” says Voltage producer Nicolas Chartier in a statement picked up by Deadline. “It is absolutely amazing to have Shia LaBeouf, arguably the brightest young star in Hollywood today paired with the global icon Robert Redford.” Let’s hope LaBeouf doesn’t end up causing more trouble by giving dodgy interviews between now and the film’s planned shooting start in September.