Matt Damon is teaming up with Spotlight director Tom McCarthy for a drama titled Stillwater. The project is being set up at Participant Media. Damon will play an American oil rig worker from Oklahoma named Bill who travels to France to visit his estranged daughter, in prison for a murder she claims she didn’t commit.
Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter. In the process, he develops a friendship with a local woman and her own daughter, embarking on a personal journey of discovery.
This collaboration isn’t much of a surprise. A Damon-McCarthy team up has been rumoured for months, ever since the duo were photographed together in Oklahoma in early June. Damon reportedly attached himself to the project in May.
Participant Media quickly jumped at the chance to produce, having worked with McCarthy previously on his Best Picture winner Spotlight. Damon was poised to star in that at one point, too.
McCarthy co-wrote the Stillwater script with Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré. Participant CEO David Linde told Variety: “This is a wonderful script, centered on universal themes of connection and the search for truth, and we couldn’t be more excited to bring it to audiences around the world”.
Damon and McCarthy teaming up for a prestige drama should get any film fan excited. Let’s just hope it’s not too similar to Participant’s last project, Green Book, which became arguable the most controversial and despised Best Picture winner ever.
Damon will next be seen in James Mangold‘s Ford v. Ferrari alongside Christian Bale, which opens Friday, November 15. McCarthy is currently working on Showtime’s Roger Ailes series, The Loudest Voice.
#Peace.Love.Stillwater
