Vince Vaughn and Adrien Brody will star in S. Craig Zahler’s The Bookie & the Bruiser

Writer/director S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk Best Director Sitges Film Festival) reunites with his frequent collaborator Vince Vaughn (Dragged Across Concrete, Brawl In Cell Block 99) and Oscar© winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist, The Grand Budapest Hotel) on the new gangster thriller The Bookie & the Bruiser. Anton will introduce the film to international distributors at the upcoming Marche du Film. UTA Independent Film Group and Range Media Partners arranged the financing and will be representing the North American distribution rights.

Anthony Katagas will produce via his Keep Your Head Productions alongside Dave Caplan. C2 Motion Picture Group is fully financing the project.

The film is planned for a 4th quarter 2024 shoot.

The Bookie & the Bruiser is set in 1959 New York City and features a pensive, Jewish fellow named Rivner and an oversized Italian-American tough named Boscolo from the Lower East Side, both of whom served overseas in World War II and returned changed men who no longer fit inside the lives they’d left behind. Uninterested in taking orders from bosses or playing by the rules of polite society, the two friends partner up as a bookmaker and an enforcer and create an illicit gambling operation that proves to be very profitable, though risky, and their situation gets rather sticky when they find themselves stuck between a powerful Irish gang and the Mafia.

• Vince Vaughn has become one of Hollywood’s most highly acclaimed triple threats as an actor, producer and screenwriter. He has excelled as a global superstar both for his iconic dramatic and comedic roles. Credits include The Break-up and Couples Retreat which he also wrote, multi-nominated Academy Award Hacksaw Ridge directed by Mel Gibson starring Andrew Garfield, Seberg directed by Benedict Andrews starring Kristen Stewart, and Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn starring Emile Hirsch.
• Adrien Brody is an Academy Award-winning actor, producer, composer and painter best known for his tour-de-force performance in The Pianist, for which he was awarded an Oscar for Best Actor. His film credits include Asteroid City, King Kong, The Darjeeling Limited, The French Dispatch, and Midnight in Paris. On television, he has starred in HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Los Angeles Lakers and the acclaimed crime drama Peaky Blinders. He garnered Emmy nominations for his performances as Harry Houdini in Houdini and investor Josh Aaronson in HBO’s highly-decorated drama series Succession.
• Anthony Katagas is one of the most prolific producers working in American independent film. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture for his role in producing 12 Years a Slave. He has produced nearly 35 films in recent years including We Own The Night, Two Lovers, Killing Them Softly, Lost City of Z, Ad Astra, Uncut Gems, Armageddon Time, and Amsterdam. He is an Executive Producer of Amazon’s hit show Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
• S. Craig Zahler is a screenwriter, novelist, songwriter, and cartoonist whose first produced script Asylum Blackout was picked up by IFC Midnight following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. His subsequent film credits include the award-winning, character-driven horror-western Bone Tomahawk starring Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins, David Arquette and Fred Melamed. Zahler followed this success with Brawl In Cell Block 99, a brutal crime thriller that premiered at both TIFF and the Venice Film Festival starring Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, and Udo Kier, further establishing his reputation for uncompromising storytelling, nuanced characters, controlled performances, and visceral violence. Zahler continued to push boundaries with his next film, Dragged Across Concrete, a gritty crime drama starring Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White, and Thomas Kretschmann that also had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. All three pictures were added to the permanent collection at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

“We are thrilled to be working with the visionary S. Craig Zahler on this action-packed tale of a searing conflict between the Irish-American and Italian Mafias in New York and see Vince and Adrien team up in this very unique power charged film,” says Anton CEO Sébastien Raybaud.

“I’m honored and humbled to be working with one of my favorite filmmakers. A S. Craig Zahler’s gangster movie is something I’m dying watch!” said Dave Caplan.