Colin Farrell is reportedly set to star in Belly of the Beast, the next film from All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh.
According to film journalist Jeff Sneider, Farrell is reported to star in the film alongside Zoolander star Ben Stiller, who is also in talks to co-star in Haigh’s next film.
Belly of the Beast is reported to be a biographical drama about author Norman Mailer (Stiller) and his relationship with former convict Jack Henry Abbott (Farrell), following the latter’s release from prison in the early 1980s. The plot is described as follows: “When Jack arrives in New York, Mailer is overwhelmed by the sadness and squalor of the former’s life but fails to follow through on his promises to help. Mailer also gets angry and embarrassed when Jack humiliates him by not playing the part of the genius writer in the way the author would like.”
Haigh is reportedly directing the project based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Alexis C. Jolly. The director has previously collaborated with Farrell on BBC Miniseries The North Water. Haigh is also developing a film adaptation of McGlue from author Ottessa Moshfegh (Eileen), which follows a drunken sailor who wakes up chained in the hold of the boat he works on, too drunk to remember what happened, and told that he murdered his shipmate.
Farrell was Oscar-nominated last year for his performance in The Banshees of Inisherin, and is currently filming The Penguin television series, in which he is reprising his role as Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin in 2022’s The Batman. Filming has recently wrapped on upcoming Apple TV+ series Sugar, starring Farrell in a “genre-bending contemporary take on the private detective story set in Los Angeles".
All of Us Strangers, director Andrew Haigh’s latest film starring Andrew Scott (Spectre) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun), begins its theatrical release in Irish cinemas on January 26th, 2024.
