Shia LaBeouf has played the lead in six movies in the past four years, which is significantly more impressive considering that four of those films were lengthy big-budget action shoots. And this isn’t even including his upcoming transforming robot punchfest. So it maybe shouldn’t be too surprising that LaBeouf doesn’t have a film lined up after Transformers 3 yet. Dude is probably pretty tired.
LaBeouf’s name has hovered around a few different projects recently. Like John Hillcoat’s Triple Nine (a heist film which Chris Pine’s name has also circled) and an adaptation of John Grisham’s The Associate (a legal-thriller of course). But according to info dug up by the LA Times, LaBeouf is most interested in a script written by newcomer Wes Jones called College Republicans, a dramedy about a young Karl Rove trying to become chief campus conservative under the guidance of his campaign manager, Lee Atwater. There is no talent attached to the project currently, though Richard Linklater’s name has been mentioned as a director.
If the script is good, I think LaBeouf should do it. I’d like to see his comedic take on Bush’s evil henchman. This is frankly the most interesting LaBeouf news I’ve heard in a while. Seeing a very young LaBeouf on Even Stevens, I thought he had serious potential to become a Bill Murray type – the guy has great timing and a biting delivering. So it has been disappointing seeing him squander his comedic talents on all these bloated action films. Dude should diversify.