Alfonso Gomez-Rejon crafted an intimate and emotional indie drama with Me and Earl and the Dying Girl earlier this year, and now the filmmaker is in line to direct Oscar Isaac in Paramount’s real-life political thriller A Foreigner.
That’s according to Variety, reporting that the Star Wars: The Force Awakens star is on the verge of joining the cast. Centering on a Guatemalan lawyer named Rodrigo Rosenberg who, in order to bring an end to a relentless cycle of corruption in his home country, orders a video of his murder to be published to the world posthumously.
Chris Terrio penned the script for A Foreigner, adapting David Grann’s eye-catching New Yorker article “A Murder Foretold” from 2011. Steve Zaillian is producing via his Film Rites banner, while Steven Rales, Garrett Basch and Mark Roybal will split producing responsibilities between them. In terms of Gomez-Rejon, the director quickly topped Paramount’s list after exiting Collateral Beauty at the beginning of October; now, Isaac is being eyed for the starring role according to sources close to the project.
Simmering in development for quite some time, Matt Damon had once been courted to make his directorial debut with A Foreigner, though today’s news means that Gomez-Rejon, who has reportedly expressed an interest in the core subject, is a hot favorite to helm the political thriller.
Slotting into the actor’s jam-packed calling card, it remains to be seen when exactly A Foreigner will be able to enter production. Isaac can next be seen in Disney’s juggernaut Star Wars: The Force Awakens, before the arrival of X-Men: Apocalypse six months later. In between the blockbuster fare, fans of the actor can look forward to seeing him in Terry George’s The Promise opposite Christian Bale.
