Sam Shepard is in negotiations to play family patriarch Beverly Weston in The Weinstein Company’s adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play “August: Osage County,” which John Wells is directing from a script by playwright Tracy Letts.
Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts star alongside Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin, Margo Martindale, Chris Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch and Dermot Mulroney.
Drama follows the strong-willed women of the Weston clan, a dysfunctional Midwest family whose members are brought together when their alcoholic patriarch (Shepard) disappears, forcing them to confront unspoken truths and long-held secrets.
George Clooney and Grant Heslov are producing with Jean Doumanian and Steve Traxler, while Claire Rudnick Polstein is exec producing. Production is skedded to start next month in Oklahoma.
Shepard, who recently appeared in U’s “Safe House” and Lawrence Kasdan’s “Darling Companion,” will next be seen alongside Brad Pitt in Andrew Dominik’s TWC release “Killing Them Softly.” Oscar-nominated thesp also co-stars in Jeff Nichols’ coming-of-age pic “Mud” and just wrapped a supporting role in Scott Cooper’s Relativity thriller “Out of the Furnace.”
Shepard is repped by ICM Partners and attorney Suzanne Phillips.
