It's been a while since we've seen Ryan Gosling on the big screen, but he has no shortage of exciting projects in the works, and now he's added another to his development slate, as Gosling as signed on to star in The Actor from Anomalisa filmmaker Duke Johnson.
The film is based on Donald E. Westlake's novel Memory, a hard-boiled noir about a New York actor named Paul Cole who is beaten and left for dead before waking up with no memory in a mysterious small town in 1950s Ohio. As he struggles to get back home, Paul must piece together and reclaim the life and identity he has lost.
Johnson co-wrote the script with Stephen Cooney and he'll also produce The Actor with his Innerlight Films partner Abigail Spencer, as well as Paul Young of Make Good Content. Gosling will also produce with Waypoint Entertainment’s Ken Kao.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson was previously circling the project, which will be shopped at the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin.
While both Blade Runner 2049 and First Man each had their fans, I found both films to be fairly disappointing, and Gosling appears to have taken some time to brush himself off and restabilize his career. He has now lined up a quartet of interesting projects, including Netflix's big-budget blockbuster The Gray Man, which pairs him with Chris Evans and hails from the Russo brothers; Phil Lord and Chris Miller's astronaut movie Project Hail Mary at MGM; Leigh Whannell's Wolfman movie at Universal; and now Duke Johnson's latest project. It seems like Gosling is about to get his mojo back, and I, for one, can't wait.