‘The Weight’: Ethan Hawke & Russell Crowe To Star In 1930s Oregon Survival Drama

If you weren’t aware, the European Film Market is in full swing in Berlin, with folks gearing up for financing and distribution partners. A heap of films are hoping to find suitors. Another high-profile film project heading to EFM, as announced by Fields Entertainment, Under The Influence, and augenschein Filmproduktion in collaboration with Construction Film is a period thriller, “The Weight,” starring veteran actors Ethan Hawke (“Leave The World Behind”) and Russell Crowe (“Gladiator”).

Padraic McKinley will direct from an original screenplay by Shelby Gaines, Matthew Chapman, and Matthew Booi. “The Weight” is also based on an original story by Booi and Leo Scherman.

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Set in the backdrop of an Oregon prison labor camp in the 1930s, “The Weight” sees Hawke playing Samuel Murphy, who finds himself imprisoned and under the thumb of an unscrupulous overseer, Clancy (played by Crowe), after the death of his wife. Murphy is desperate to escape and reunite with his daughter, Penny. But Clancy’s scheme to perilously smuggle gold leads to threats from both the Oregon wildness and within his own group.

Bavaria will be doubling for Oregon when filming kicks off this summer, with Capelight Pictures releasing the pic locally in Germany.

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It’s quite the compelling elevator pitch, with Hawke and Crowe going at it in Oregon’s rainy/foggy wilderness. Throwing in a fight over gold should make for some dramatic scenes alongside the perfect entry point to use Western flourishes given the setting and period where maybe 1930s technology isn’t going to be readily available everywhere. Murphy and Clancy will surely have to use their wits to keep themselves alive and in good health.