John Hillcoat, director of "The Road," has thrown in the towel on his attempt to bring "The Wettest Country In The World" to the big screen.
The film version of Matt Bondurant's novel, about a Prohibition Era moonshining operation, was to be titled "The Promised Land" (not to be confused with the Zombie epic of the same name that came out this year) and was scheduled to begin filming in February. Hillcoat bemoaned the project's demise in an on-line diary published in the UK Telegraph.
"My own new project -- with a much-loved script by Nick Cave and a dream all-star cast -- has fallen apart," wrote Hillcoat in a minor screed about the economic crush hitting the movie industry.
The "all-star cast" was to include Shia Labeouf, Ryan Gosling, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Dano, Amy Adams and Michael Shannon, according to The Playlist. So, yeah, "all-star" applies.
Hillcoat and Nick Cave – one of the few rock greats whose film work matches the quality of his music – previously teamed up on "the Proposition," a relentlessly badass minor masterpiece set in the 19th-century Australia Outback starring Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone and Emily Watson.
