After much toing and froing over who would direct Tales from the Gangster Squad before the job went to Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer, the film is starting to heat up at Warner Bros., with the studio offering Sean Penn and Ryan Gosling major roles in the movie
Deadline reports that Penn is up for Mickey Cohen, a former boxer who became an associate of Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. He was a man about Los Angeles, and also a suspected sociopath who caused a great deal of harm to those he came in contact with.
Ryan Gosling has been offered the role of one of two cops trying to bring this notorious gangster down. It’s not known if either will accept the offer, but Warner hopes to start shooting later this year.
And Warner Bros. recently seem to love the mob at the moment, as they’re also moving forward on the Al Capone biopic Cicero, which looks at the gangster’s earlier years. The studio is now interested in hiring Harry Potter director David Yates to helm the flick, based on Walon Green’s screenplay. However while they’ve mulling the possibility, so discussions with Yates have taken place yet.