Ed Harris (Appaloosa, Pollock) will direct his own adaptation of Kim Zupan’s 2014 novel The Ploughmen with Owen Teague, Nick Nolte, and Bill Murray signed on to star.
The pic is described as a “neo-noir crime thriller” and will go into production in Montana this fall. Amy Madigan and Lily Harris round out the cast. Concourse Media and CAA Media Finance are co-representing domestic rights, with Concourse handling international and launching sales at Cannes.
The Ploughmen will be the third film that Harris directs after his Western Appaloosa and multi-Oscar nominated Pollock. Harris, Ginger Sledge (Appaloosa, Where’d You Go Bernadette), Claude Dal Farra and Brian Keady of BCDF Pictures (To Leslie), and Robert Knott (Appaloosa) are producers alongside Matthew Shreder and Grant Mohrman as executive producers.
The film is set in the wilderness of Montana, where a strange friendship develops between a haunted young deputy sheriff and a notorious old murderer. John Gload (Nolte) is a killer so adept at his job that only now has he been apprehended. Val Millimaki (Teague) is a low man in the Copper County Sheriff’s Department. As Val continues his unlucky streak of finding dead bodies, Sheriff (Murray) puts him on night duty to try and get Gload to reveal his past. Val finds much in common with his prisoner and dangerously seeks counsel from him.
“I’ve been trying to get this film made for a while. It’s worth the wait to tell this intriguing story with a great cast and crew and the beauty of Montana,” Harris said.
Harris is repped by CAA, Jill Fritzo PR, and Ziffren Brittenham. Nolte is repped by CAA, Tavistock Wood, Rogers & Cowan/PMK, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman. Teague is repped by CAA, Advantage PR, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman, et al. Murray is repped by David Nochimson at Nochimson Law. Sledge is repped by Greenberg Glusker.
