Brad Pitt Talks to Director RaMell Ross About How His Basketball Career Unexpectedly Influenced ‘Nickel Boys’

Read an excerpt of the pair’s conversation below and watch the full video, an IndieWire exclusive, right here.

Brad Pitt: Thanks so much, man, for taking time out to talk about “Nickel Boys.

RaMell Ross: Pleasure is mine, man. Pleasure is mine.

I haven’t seen anything like it. It’s so original. And I have some questions.

I’d love to field them. I’d love to field them.

Well, first starting with “The Nickel Boys,” it’s based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name. Tell me about the pressure, the responsibility, the joy of interpreting this, what you co-wrote with Joslyn Barnes.

Yeah, it’s a lot of pressure, but I think the real pressure, honestly, was not messing it up to the point where this opportunity wouldn’t be afforded to others. I think it’s pretty unprecedented that companies like yours, and this isn’t a promo for Plan B, but you guys support some pretty wild ideas, like how do you make a film that is so reflexive, but also in conversation with Black visuality and also supporting Colson’s narrative and elevating the Dozier School boys to the annals of film? These are big ideas. So the pressure was, I think, to satisfy the concept, to give life.

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Brad Pitt To Star In & Produce ‘Heart Of The Beast’

Brad Pitt has found his next star vehicle in Heart of the Beast, David Ayer‘s action adventure film for Paramount Pictures, on which we were first to report last March. Pill will also produce for his Plan B Entertainment.

Written by Cameron Alexander, who will executive produce, Heart of the Beast centers on a former Army Special Forces soldier and his retired combat dog who battle for survival after a plane crash deep in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness.

Damien Chazelle and Olivia Hamilton will also produce under their Wild Chickens Productions banner, as part of their first-look deal with the studio. Ayer also produces under his Crave Films banner, along with Temple Hill Entertainment. Richard Raymond is co-producing.

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David Leitch Paddling Towards ‘Ocean’s 14’

David Leitch is in early talks to direct Ocean’s 14, the Smokehouse-produced caper franchise for Warner Bros that will mark the first one not directed by Steven Soderbergh, sources confirm. We’d reported that Conclave helmer Edward Berger was in talks, but those have gone away. The intention is to bring the original cast back in the fold. Leitch is coming off the Ryan Gosling-Emily Blunt-starrer Fall Guy and the Brad Pitt-starrer before that. Pitt’s part of the core Ocean’s cast along with George Clooney, Matt Damon, and others. The talks were first reported by The InSneider.

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