CriterionCast

Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land Hitting Theaters This Year?

2012 may have just become an even greater year for film.

The ever so studious guys over at The Film Stage (hat tip to The Playlist as well) have picked up a story originally pinned down in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, revealing a few new intriguing details about the long awaited re-teaming of director Gus Van Sant and star Matt Damon.

Co-scribed by John Krasinski, The Promised Land also features the likes of Frances McDormand, Hal Holbrook and Rosemarie Dewitt and follows two salesmen who go to a rural town and take advantage of the economic hardship hindering the citizens to figure out a way to get them to sign a deal allowing their company to drill in the area. Krasinski reveals that the film could very well hit some theaters by the end of this year, and that the film likely won’t live up to people’s expectations of the film being an anti-fracking (a drilling method) picture.

Personally, while I could really care less about the film’s potential for being a political statement, the fact that we may be seeing a new Gus Van Sant film later this year (a late season festival run possibly) is really exciting. I think he’s one of the best living American filmmakers, and in a year that sees a handful of his fellow icons giving us films is really damn exciting. Toss in Damon, and you have a film that sounds far too good to be true.

Source Pittsburgh Post Gazette / The Film Stage / The Playlist

Joshua Brunsting

Josh is a critic, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, a wrestling nerd, a hip-hop head, a father, a cinephile and a man looking to make his stamp on the world, one word at a time.