So What Are Ben and Casey Affleck Up to Now?

Photos by Helga Esteb and s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

The post-awards season blues apparently does not exist for the Affleck brothers. The beloved Boston boys have quite a few projects in store through the next year and a half. And that includes an anticipated collaboration, as well.

What Ben Affleck Is Up To

Just before the success of Ben Affleck’s Oscar-winning Best Picture Argo, Ben signed onto a project titled Live by Night late last year that he is set to produce, direct, and star in. The film is based on a crime novel of the same title written by Dennis Lehane, author of Gone Baby Gone (which Ben directed for the screen in 2007 starring brother Casey). Live by Night is a “riveting epic” as described in its book synopsis. It follows the youngest son of a prominent police captain and his involvement in organized crime in Boston during the 1920s prohibition era.

Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in the film adaption of another Dennis Lehane novel, Shutter Island, will co-produce alongside Affleck. Live by Night‘s expected release date is sometime in 2014.

Earlier this year, Affleck told MTV he had to part ways with a romantic conman movie he was set to star in titled Focus, with Twilight‘s Kristen Stewart as its female lead, to meet Live by Night deadlines. Just recently, however, Deadline reported that Affleck is at the center of another high six-figure Warner Bros. deal to direct another Boston-based film, Bunker Hill. This project is another book adaption based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s novel that follows Boston, Lexington, and Concord battles that ignited the American Revolution in 1775. Although the world could never get enough Ben Affleck-starring movies, it is great to see that Affleck is concentrating on directing, as he is so creatively talented behind the camera.

What Casey Affleck Is Up To

As for brother Casey, this Affleck has quite a few projects to look forward to as well. Deadline reported last week that National Geographic greenlighted a major project starring Casey Affleck.  The series is a “provocative” documentary special that chronicles people’s final days before death with home footage, personal testimonies, and interviews. Affleck will star next to Joaquin Pheonix and will work with Scott Free Productions, the company behind National Geographic’s hit series Killing Lincoln.

In addition, Affleck’s recent independent film, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, was acquired by IFC films for a million-dollar deal at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

What Ben and Casey Affleck Are Up To

And in spite of all the independent Affleck-craze, we can still expect a long-awaited collaborative project from Ben and Casey Affeck, which we haven’t seen since Casey starred in the Ben-directed film Gone Baby Gone. Ben told IndieWire’s The Playlist last October that he and best friend Matt Damon are developing a biopic based on Boston gangster Whitey Bulger. Ben will direct the film, in which Damon will star as Bulger and Casey will co-star.

“My guess is, honestly, it’ll be the movie after next,” Ben told The Playlist. He also attributed the writer of HBO’s The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire, Terrence Winter, as the script’s penman. “Terrence Winter is a really talented writer. He’s working on it. It’s a tricky thing because it needs a lot of nuance, but luckily it dosen’t matter how old Matt gets. It ends with [Bulger] at 85.”