Ben Affleck is about to star in yet another film that he will not be directing. While these tend to be mediocre, there remains a ray of optimism as the actor’s street cred has ballooned with back-to-back hits in The Town and the soon-to-release Argo which hits theaters this weekend. Today’s news puts a feature called Focus at center stage as one of WB’s go-to directors is in talks to join the project. Written by John Reque and Glenn Ficarra, the Crazy, Stupid, Love directors will take the reins.
Focus has Affleck playing a con man that gets romantically involved with a grifter. This means that a strong female lead will need to be cast, so that is what we will be watching for in the weeks and months that follow. It was once the assumption that Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling would reunite for the pic.
Since the actor-turn-director does still goes in front of the camera exclusively from time to time, this makes today’s story a bit less incredible. He has a very small part in the low-budget Terrence Malick drama To the Wonder and recently shot Brad Furman’s Runner, Runner for next year. There is no word yet on Affleck’s directorial follow-up, but odds are we can go ahead and say that the headlines will be larger than they are here today.