According to FirstShowing.net both Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are set to join Jeff Bridges in the cast of the Coen’s forthcoming adaptation of the Charles Portis novel, True Grit.

No reader of YKFK will need reminding of Brolin’s cracking performance in No Country For Old Men but Damon would be working with the Coen brothers for the first time, he joins George Clooney and Brad Pitt from the Ocean’s gang in having worked with them. Neither will play the 14 year-old girl who is the focus of both the novel and the movie, Damon is set to play LaBouef, a lawman alongside Bridges’ “Rooster” Cogburn while Brolin, surprisingly I thought, is due to play the murderer.

EDIT: According to the original Variety article the movie is due to go into production in March with a release date somewhere late in2010 with Paramount Pictures. The Coens reteam with producer Scott Rudin who worked with them on No Country For Old Men but interestingly, Steven Spielberg is also producing…

During the Toronto International Film Festival Collider.com got some time with Joel and Ethan Coen at a roundtable interview. They asked pointed questions about True Grit and the recent speculation about re-teaming with Jeff Bridges. Here are the resulting answers;

Collider: What was it about “True Grit” that made you want to do it as your next project?

Ethan Coen: Hopefully we’ll do it, but it’s not definite. Well it’s just a really good book. That’s the long and short of it…it’s just a great book. While there are a lot of great books, it’s a great book that seems like there is room to have a good movie made from it…which maybe hasn’t happened yet. (lots of laughter in the room)

Collider: And you guys are working with Jeff Bridges again.

Joel Coen: Hopefully. We’ll see. We’ve been talking to him. We don’t know. Nothing is definite. We don’t have a go ahead on this movie. We don’t have a cast – or the rest of it. Hopefully it’ll happen. It’s just in the talking stages right now.

So, True Grit is not yet confirmed as the Coen brothers’ next movie but they have an interesting slant on it so hopefully it will happen. It would be a shame for this to go the same way as their aborted adaptation of James Dickey’s To The White Sea.

In surprising but frankly awesome news it seems the Jeff Bridges is in talks to take the John Wayne role in the forthcoming Coen brothers remake (well new adaptation of the Charles Portis source novel really) of True Grit. Variety are carrying the story here.

I can’t speak for y’all but this really would be tremendous.

File this one under rumour for the time being but the California Chronicle reckons that past Coen brothers stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney are going to to Duke (pun intended) it out for the John Wayne role in the Coen’s forthcoming remake/adaptation of True Grit.

Thanks to Bunnie for pointing this out.

In a brief interview with the Chigago Tribune novellist Michael Chabon had this to say about the Coen brothers adaptation of his novel…

Q What’s moving forward most quickly is a Coen brothers’ adaptation of “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” right?

A Right. I’m a huge Coen brothers fan. I love their movies. It’s an event when there’s a new Coen brothers movie coming out. I can’t wait to see it. The fact that it’s something I wrote is just gravy. They seem perfect for it. As soon as I heard they were considering it, they sounded like the ideal choice for the material.

I couldn’t agree more about this being right up the Coen’s alley and I really, REALLY hope they get to it as soon as True Grit is finished.

Thanks to Will for mailing this in. 

In a bizarre twist it looks like the zombie article at the Daily Mail from a year ago could have risen from the grave for a good reason. Variety are reporting that the Coen brothers are indeed set to re-make True Grit next. It has apparenlty stepped ahead of “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” in the pecking order.

Good news is that they plan to stick more closely to the plot of the original Charles Portis novel focusing on the story of a 14 year-old girl rather than follow the plot of the John Wayne movie. 

Bad news is- I was really looking forward to ”The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” because the novel is great and right up the Coen’s alley so to speak.

So, the Coens set to do a Western… could be interesting. Now I must read the book…

Thanks to Calvin and Erenik for tipping me off.

The world’s most awful newspaper, the UK’s Daily Mail, is reporting that the Coens are set to work on True Grit. Apparently they are to adapt the original Charles Portis novel as opposed to remaking the John Wayne movie. “The book recounts the girl’s story,” Joel apparently told said newspaper. “In the John Wayne film, she was played older. We want her to be her real age – it’s her story!”

This stinks of either crappy journalism or a Coen joke to me. Let’s not forget that the Coens have spoken about making a violent western in the recent past (see the entry dated 30th Dec below).