Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts have signed on to star in August: Osage County, the Pulitzer Prize and Tony-Award winning play from Tracy Letts. John Wells, the showrunner for such hit series as China Beach, ER, and most recently Shameless, is set to direct. For Wells it will be his second time helming a Hollywood feature after The Company Man starring Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper.
In August: Osage County, Streep will play the pill-popping mother Violet Weston, and Roberts will play her complicated adult daughter Barbara. Violet and Barbara are strong-willed but their lives are divergent until a family crisis reunites them along with Barbara’s two female siblings.
The Weinstein Company’s Harvey and Bob Weinstein made the announcement about the project public on Wednesday. It will begin filming this fall.
Tracy Letts, you may recall, had her play Bug adapted into a feature film directed by William Friedkin and starring Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd. The adaptation of her play Killer Joe (also directed by Friedkin) will play at this year’s SXSW.