To get interesting stories made in today's climate, yes you need financing and all the necessary little wheels in motion, but sometimes you just need someone to take an interest and push things forward. And that's just what Matthew McConaughey has done with "The Dallas Buyer's Club." While he's been attached to the film since the spring of 2011, earlier this year he put aside a potential role in Lee Daniels' "The Butler" to really focus on the movie and get it rolling. And now it looks like the fall start date is fast approaching, with casting beginning to gear up, even as one actor drops out.
While Hilary Swank — who joined not long after McConaughey — is out, Gael Garcia Bernal is now on board, though obviously not for the same role. The movie is based on the true story of Ron Woodruff, a man who in 1986 was diagnosed with AIDS and given only months to live, who ventured out and started toying around with underground drugs not approved for use in the U.S. at the time. He wound up living longer than expected and began getting these drugs in the hands of other AIDS sufferers as well, though it wasn't long before the FDA tried to shut him down. Bernal will play an effeminate member the "club," who is also suffering from AIDS, that Ron meets in the hospital.
Things are now picking up steam, and the movie, set to be directed by Jean-Marc Vallée ("The Young Victoria," "C.R.A.Z.Y.") is now aiming for a November shoot in New Orleans. [THR]
