Austin Butler to team up with Oscar-nominated director for new movie
Dune: Part Two star Austin Butler has decided upon his next project, which will see him team up with esteemed director Darren Aronofsky.
Aronofsky, who was nominated for ‘Best Director’ at the Academy Awards in 2010 for Black Swan, has secured Butler for his upcoming movie Caught Stealing. The forthcoming film will be based on the book of the same name by Charlie Huston, who will also be on script duties for Aronofsky’s next venture.
As first reported by Deadline, Caught Stealing will be made by Sony Pictures. As of yet, there is no timeline of when the movie will enter production or a rough release date.
In a statement, Aronofsky said of Caught Stealing: “I am excited to be teaming up with my old friends at Sony Pictures to bring Charlie’s adrenaline-soaked roller coaster ride to life. I can’t wait to start working with Austin and my family of NYC filmmakers.”
In the original book by Huston, Hank Thompson is the central character. He is a former baseball player whose life takes a dark turn, when he unwillingly finds himself in a testing situation as Thompson is forced to navigate the seedy criminal world of New York in the 1990s.
Sanford Panitch, president of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, said of Caught Stealing: “Darren is one of the most brilliant audiovisual storytellers in the world, and adapting these wonderful books by Charlie Huston for Austin to star was too exciting an opportunity to not be a part of.”
Before signing onto the new project, Butler had plentiful options at the table while he’s been travelling the world carrying out press duties for Dune: Part Two and Masters of the Air, but ultimately decided Caught Stealing was the right move for his career.
Butler’s next on-screen appearance is the Jeff Nichols movie The Bikeriders, also featuring Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon. The film initially premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in August 2023, and was set for a December 1st cinematic release date, but the effects of the SAG-AFTRA strike led to a postponement. It will now arrive on June 21st.
While speaking to Interview Magazine in 2023, Butler explained why it was a frightening movie to make, stating: “When we’d be in these groups of 40, riding bikes down a tiny road, and you’re thinking, ‘If anybody were to crash right now, all of us would go down.’ And we’re not wearing helmets, riding through cornfields as fast as we can.”
The Hollywood star is still riding the crest of a wave and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Far Out wrote of his performance in a four-and-a-half-star review of Dune: Part Two: “Butler actually manages to steal the show at certain moments as the film’s new antagonist, a deranged and violent psychopath handed reign of Arakkis by his uncle, and he admirably displays a fetishist sex appeal, an impressive physicality in Gladiator-esque moments, and an utterly psychotic attitude all in the same breath.”
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