casting couch

Casey Affleck and Zoe Saldana May Join Christian Bale in Out of the Furnace

Photo: Francois Durand/2011 Getty Images

Scott Cooper’s follow-up to Crazy Heart is starting to look, how do you say, stacked. Christian Bale landed the lead for Out of the Furnace in late February, and now we’ve got rumblings of both Zoe Saldana and Casey Affleck jumping in. Bale is set to play a freed convict whose brother (probably Affleck) is murdered, canceling the plan for law-abiding citizenship in lieu of revenge. Bale’s character’s ex-wife (the role eyed for Saldana) is married to the sherriff, too, so that’s good. Chuck in the fact that Ridley and Tony Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio are all producers on this thing — oh, and the casting rumors around Robert Duvall and Viggo Mortensen, as the villain — and you’re going to need a new synonym for Oscar-bait.

Casey Affleck and Zoe Saldana May Join Christian Bale in Out of the Furnace