Since recently putting his name to such feel-good schmaltz as “Flipped” and “The Bucket List,” it appears director Rob Reiner now craves a return to the darker films of his early career (“Ghosts of Mississippi,” “Misery”). He's just signed on to co-star as Leonardo DiCaprio's dad in Martin Scorsese's “Wolf of Wall Street,” making his first on-screen appearance since 2003's “Alex & Emma,” and has now announced he will direct a psychological thriller in the vein of “Cape Fear.”
THR reports Reiner is set to shoot “You Belong to Me,” which was written by David Murray, and follows a psychiatrist who professionally transgresses by talking about himself with a patient, and then deals with the dangerous consequences of that decision. Reiner recently expressed an admiration for the thriller genre, and cleared up reasons why he's stayed away from them for his past few films. “They are hard to make well, but this one has a deep psychological bent to it and a big twist in the end that I didn't see coming,” he said. "That's why I decided to take a whack at this one."
Richard Lewis of Southpaw Entertainment will produce alongside Scott Steindorff and Alan Greisman of Stone Village, and casting for the four leads, which include the psychiatrist, his wife, their daughter, and the patient's brother, has already begun. Though his output recently has been mediocre at best, “Misery” showed Reiner to be more than capable of matching memorably deranged scenes and characters to a twisted narrative, so another effort in the genre could place him well back on track quality-wise.
Reiner's latest film, “The Magic of Belle Island,” which stars Morgan Freeman and Virginia Madsen, opens July 6th, after which point Reiner hopes to shoot “You Belong to Me” in New York during the fall.
