Ben Affleck and rising star Ana de Armas are in negotiations to star in New Regency's erotic thriller Deep Water, which will mark the first film directed by Adrian Lyne since 2002's Unfaithful, Collider has confirmed.
The film is based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley) that has been adapted by Zack Helm (Stranger Than Fiction) and Sam Levinson (Euphoria). Steve Zaillian and Garrett Basch are producing with Anthony Katagas and Arnon Milchan, as well as Guymon Casady and Ben Forkner of Entertainment 360. Production is being eyed to start in November, and the project is expected to fall under New Regency's output deal with Fox/Disney.
Affleck and de Armas are poised to play Victor and Melinda Van Allen, a couple stuck in a loveless marriage who spice things up by allowing each other to take lovers. Naturally, things get messy, and their mind games with each other take a twisted turn when people around them start turning up dead.
Lyne has been sitting on the sidelines for far too long, and he's the perfect director for this kind of steamy material, considering that his credits include 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful, the latter of which was one of the sexiest films I've ever seen in an actual movie theater. Lyne has been developing the project since 2013 and it looks like Deep Water will finally get made now that it has garnered interest from Affleck, who starred in Gone Girl, which also exposed the dark cracks in a suburban marriage.
Affleck recently signed on to star opposite Matt Damon in Ridley Scott's already-controversial The Last Duel, which the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting scribes co-wrote with Nicole Holofcener. He next stars as an alcoholic basketball coach in an upcoming drama from Gavin O'Connor that Warner Bros. will release this fall.
De Armas recently starred in Blade Runner 2049, and it was her turn in that film that caught the eye of director Andrew Dominik, who then cast the Cuban actress as Marilyn Monroe in the Netflix movie Blonde, which is expected to start production as soon as she wraps Bond 25. She next stars in Rian Johnson's murder mystery Knives Out. CAA and Impression Entertainment represent de Armas, while Affleck is repped by WME, and Lyne is repped by ICM Partners. Deadline broke the news.
