Warner Bros. has entered into negotiations with Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin to star in Gangster Squad, a crime drama scripted by Will Beall (author of L.A. Rex
Zombieland and the upcoming summer comedy 30 Minutes or Less, will helm the project.
The basis of the drama is a series of articles by Paul Lieberman, and centers on the crime fighting exploits of a squad of elite Los Angeles officers in the 1940s charged with stopping him and other mobsters.
It was less than a month ago when we reported that both Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn had been circling Gangster Squad.
Sean Penn’s character would be that of Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen. Gosling and Brolin are two cops assigned to bring him down.
For Penn, he is also in talks for The Last Photograph with Christian Bale on board to co-star and Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo) in as director.
I know some might be thinking why is the guy behind Zombieland doing Gangster Squad. That same question could have been levied at Curtis Hanson, who directed a pair of thrillers, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The River Wild, before L.A. Confidential.
Plus, recalling Penn’s more showy outbursts in past performances, I’m intrigued to see what he could do in a gangster turn as Mickey Cohen. An associate of both Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, Cohen was charismatic but also considered a sociopath. Previously, Mickey Cohen has been interpreted by Harvey Keitel in Bugsy and CSI’s Paul Guilfoyle in L.A. Confidential.
