Ridley Scott is a Diverse ‘Kind’

Ridley Scott is entering unknown waters with his next project. Variety recently announced that he is set to produce the period noir drama The Kind One for Warner Bros. But tapping into something new is an experience this veteran director/producer should be pretty used to. For the past thirty years, Scott’s films have shown us a dense variety of characters in an equally diverse history of settings; a vicious mommy alien in space, human clones that get angry in the future, a waitress and a housewife on the run from the law soaring into the Grand Canyon, a sandal-wearing and sword-wielding Russell Crowe in the Roman Empire, U.S. soldiers encountering disaster in Somalia and a heroin kingpin and a cop with a vengeance in 1970s New Jersey. Judging from the fact that I’m hard to find any common thread connecting his pics, I’m left to assume that the director can probably tackle anything.

The Kind One, based on the novel by Tom Epperson, takes place in 1930s Los Angeles. Casey Affleck will star as an amnesiac who ends up working for a sadistic mobster ironically nicknamed “the Kind One”… and proceeds to fall in love with the mobster’s girlfriend. Affleck’s career is on the rise after receiving rave reviews for his role as Robert Ford in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Affleck also recently starred in his brother’s directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone.

Scott will be taking another leap with a period piece, directing Russell Crowe in the Robin Hood pic Nottingham, currently in pre-production. Scott was reunited again with Crowe in the film Body Of Lies, also starring Leonardo DiCaprio, set to be released in October. And following the success of No Country for Old Men, the veteran director will be taking on a Cormac McCarthy novel for the upcoming Blood Meridian.