The Whitey Bulger movie backed by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon continues to move forward, with a new screenwriter Aaron Stockard now working on the script, according to Deadline.com. Stockard was a writer on two of Affleck’s earlier projects, “The Town†and “Gone Baby Gone,†and it appears he has replaced the original script writer for the Whitey movie, Terrence Winter, the creator behind the HBO hit series “Boardwalk Empire.â€
Deadline.com reported that Affleck and his brother, Casey, would star in the movie alongside Damon. If true, it would make the movie a reunion for three actors whose stars first began to rise in “Good Will Hunting.â€
For the Whitey movie, Damon would play the notorious South Boston gangster whose 16 years as a fugitive ended with his arrest in June 2011 and his conviction this year on 11 counts of murder along with other assorted violent crimes. Stockard’s work will focus, according to Deadline, on Bulger’s trial and conviction.
Both Damon and Ben Affleck have plenty of experience with Boston, having grown up in Cambridge, and with Boston crime films. Damon played a dirty cop in “The Departed†and Affleck played a soft-hearted bank robber in the self-directed “The Town,†which was set in Charlestown.
Stockard, too, has Boston ties. Also a Cambridge native and childhood friend of the Afflecks, he studied film at Emerson College, and lived for a while in North End.
The Damon/Affleck project is not the only one chasing the Whitey story. A competing film based on the book “Black Mass†(by former Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill) is also floating around Hollywood, with Barry Levinson reportedly on board to direct. But news earlier this year that Johnny Depp had bailed on the film was a setback and its status is unclear.
Doug Most can be reached at dmost@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Globedougmost
