Daniel Craig and Cillian Murphy are in negotiations to star in Damien Chazelle’s untitled prison movie, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Paramount will distribute the drama which is being produced by Chazelle and Olivia Hamilton via their Wild Chickens Productions shingle.
Plot details are being kept in solitary, but the film is being described as a two-hander set in a prison.
A late year start of production is being eyed.
The feature is a pivot for the La La Land filmmaker who only months ago was in prep for a summer shoot for his Evel Knievel biopic that was to star Leonardo DiCaprio. But DiCaprio, after months of talks, made his own pivot, deciding to reteam with Martin Scorsese one more time due to the legendary filmmaker’s advancing age. (The Taxi Driver and Goodfellas director is 82.)
A one point, Chazelle was working with DiCaprio on the prison project before the two focused on Knievel.
Craig, who wrapped up playing James Bond with 2021’s No Time to Die, has his third Benoit Blanc mystery thriller, Wake Up Dead Man, due to hit from Netflix later this year. Before the prison movie, the actor will shoot Greta Gerwig’s Narnia.
Murphy won an Oscar for his portrayal of atomic bomb inventor J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The actor has focused on more modest and British fare such as Small Things Like These and The Immortal Man since.
Deadline first broke the news regarding the casting dealmaking.
