79-year-old Clint Eastwood is just simply not slowing down. Last year he had two films released in 2008, the child-stolen, courtroom drama, “Changeling,” and the grumpy-old-man-befriends-Korean-kids feel-doe’r, “Gran Torino.”
Obviously he’s already got “Invictus” in the can — we just finished the script, and it does have Oscar written all over it; more on that later — and evidently he and Matt Damon (pictured above on the set of the South African-set Mandela drama) got on well, because Eastwood’s already announced his follow-up, “Hereafter,” a supernatural thriller that’s evidently not much of a thriller (Movieline calls it, “quiet drama about three people trying to figure out what, if anything, exists after death”), with Damon attached.
We recently asked how Damon was going to fit this movie in with “Liberace,” “The Adjustment Bureau” and then, possibly “Bourne 4” and the answer is Eastwood shoots, economically and fast. In fact, according to Allocine in France, production on the film is going to begin in Paris very shortly (which means principal photography on ‘Bureau’ has either finished or wraps up very soon).
Is the whole film set in Paris? That’s not entirely clear, but it’s quite possible, as evidently three French actors — Cecile de France (the excellent female lead in the ’08 French drama, “A Secret“), Thierry Neuvic (“Tell No One”) and Mylène Jampanoï (one of the late muses in “Serge Gainsbourg, vie héroïque”)— have joined the cast and the shoot will begin in late October.
So knowing Eastwood, this one’s in the can by December, finished editing in January and ready for release in March unless someone persuades him the picture is Oscar worthy and should be held until fall of 2010.
Small update: A reader who actually has read this closer than we have (duh), says “Hereafter” also shoots in London, Hawaii and San Francisco and says the script — which we still haven’t read — is a three-part story, so Damon’s role really isn’t necessarily as large as many presumed.
