After Steve McQueen, Bradley Cooper. The actor will take on the role of Frank Bullitt, hero of the 1968 film of the same name. This new version will be directed by Steven Spielberg.
Bradley Cooper in the cast of the next Steven Spielberg movie, that's a promising poster. According to information from Deadline magazine, the actor "recently" signed a deal with the director to star in his next feature film, centred on the character of Frank Bullitt, the hero of the action thriller Bullitt directed by Peter Yates and released in 1969.
At the time, the badass cop was played by Steve McQueen. Famous for the stunt scene in the protagonist's Ford Mustang, the film grossed $42 million, according to Variety. The screenplay was based on the 1963 novel Mute Witness, written by Robert L. Poisson. The film, which won an Oscar for best editing, told the story of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt, who is assigned by a politician to cover up and protect a gangster whose testimony is crucial to getting him out of a court case.
"Not a remake but a new idea"
According to Deadline, Bradley Cooper and Steven Spieberg talked about "the character [of Frank Bullitt] and what a new interpretation of the story would look like going back to the pandemic, when everyone was stuck in quarantine and had nothing but time on their hands. Sources say it's not a remake of the original film, but a new idea centred on the character," the magazine said.
In addition to starring in the film, Bradley Cooper will also co-produce, accompanied by Kristie Macosko Krieger, with whom he is currently working on the post-production of the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, which he is directing and in which he stars. Chad McQueen, Steve McQueen's son, and his granddaughter Molly McQueen are the executive producers of this new project. Josh Singer wrote the screenplay. Singer's credits include the scripts for Spotlight, Pentagon Papers and First Man.
Steven Spielberg's as yet untitled film is "currently in development at Warner Bros".