Disney is close to adding another talented thesp to its upcoming Coast Guard rescue drama The Finest Hours. Deadline reports that Casey Affleck, an Oscar nominee for his role in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, is in talks to take on a part in the film alongside Chris Pine.
Craig Gillespie (Million Dollar Arm) is set to direct The Finest Hours working from a script by Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson, the duo behind acclaimed drama The Fighter. Tamasy and Johnson adapted their script from Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias’s 2009 nonfiction book The Finest Hours: The True Story Behind the US Coast Guard’s Most Daring Rescue. Gillespie replaced Robert Schwentke, the RED helmer who left The Finest Hours after getting the chance to direct Divergent follow-up Insurgent.
No word yet on which character Affleck will be playing, but the film focuses on the efforts of the Coast Guard to rescue the crews of two oil tankers caught in a Noreaster. Based on an actual rescue in 1952, the project is being approached as a suspenseful but uplifting drama.
No release date has been set, but Disney will likely position The Finest Hours for release in awards season, given the true story at the film’s core in addition to the stellar reps of its two screenwriters and leads.
