It’s not because they’re sending him on time out for pulling a fast one on everybody with I’m Still Here, but Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will be sending Casey Affleck to the south pole- to star in an adventure thriller.
The film is Race To The South Pole, and it catalogues the parallel journeys of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen to reach the South Pole first in 1912. There was a great deal of political subtext to the journey, as Scott was an Englishman while Amundsen was from the recently-independent Norway. I’ll leave the historic spoiling alone till the last paragraph, if you’d like to make some attempt to see this film without knowing what happens.
Casey Affleck will be starring as Robert Falcon Scott, while Affleck and Damon are producing. There is a script from Peter Glanz (The Longest Week) but apparently no attached director on the film which has only just moved from pitch to project (so there’s no start date either). I could see this being a hotly contested gig, as it’s a hell of a story and the setting will make this an immediately epic film and a grueling shoot. If you want to know how shitty it is to film in the freezing cold, just ask ole Joe Carnahan.
Now moving on to spoil history, this could be a truly great film if handled well- Scott’s journey was a disaster that claimed the life of every single man, while the Norwegian Amundsen brought bride to his newly independent country by reaching the pole first and returning with every man he left with. I can imagine a great parallel narrative in which one party is experiencing their own inspirational men-on-a-mission film, while the other is wrapped up in an Aguirre-like treatise on nihlism and delusion. Affleck is well suited to playing men seemingly ordained by the universe to be unworthy, and it should be interesting to watch him drag an entire troupe of men to their icy doom. It’s important to note that Scott did actually make it to the pole, but got there only to learn he’d been beaten, and then he and his crew died from “exhaustion, starvation, and extreme cold” on their way back. What a bitch.
Definitely hoping to hear more from this one soon, especially if they land a strong director.
Source | THR (via Dark Horizons)