Shia LaBeouf and Mel Gibson are set to star in “Rothchild,” a black comedy from director Jon S. Baird (“Stan & Ollie”) that takes on the world of New York’s super rich class.
The film is being introduced to buyers at the Cannes Film Festival. CAA Media Finance is handling North American rights, and HanWay Films is handling international rights.
“Rothchild” is based on a 2014 Black List script by John Patton Ford. Unified Pictures is producing, and Keith Kjarval and Tyler Jackson will produce alongside Black Box Management principals Lowell Shapiro and Mike Dill, who represent the writer. The film will go into production in New York.
According to the official logline, Becket Rothchild (LaBeouf) was never given a fair lot in life. The bastard child of a mother, who in eloping with a jazz musician, was cast out from the Rothchild family and its vast fortune. All grown up and armed with charisma, intelligence and a flair for opportunity, it does not take long for Becket to fully grasp the immense gap between his situation and the richest 1% which should be his birth right. He has a plan.
There are precisely nine Rothchild family members who stand between him and his fortune including Whitelaw (Gibson), his sinister grandfather. How hard could it be for them each to meet with an “accident?” With the unique advantage of being unknown to any of them, Becket penetrates the weird and twisted lives of his super-rich kin amongst frat boys, hipster artists and reality TV stars. The only thing that threatens to get in the way is love, both old and new.
“Rothchild is a satirical and thrilling ride, and I am elated to be working with a filmmaker like Jon Baird, who not only has an incredible track record of guiding award-winning performances, but is crafting this film to be an action packed cautionary tale on wealth and power,” Kjarval said in a statement.
“Baird has proved to be brilliant at edgy dark comedy bringing Irvine Welsh’s ‘Filth’ to life, then showed his mainstream chops with the beloved ‘Stan and Ollie.’ Here he has a chance to combine all his skills and bring to life a real twist on the classic rags to riches story. The divide between the super rich and the rest of the world is an ever growing one, and it’s both fun and fascinating to delve into its inner bowels along with our hero trying to scramble to the top and claim his piece,” Gabrielle Stewart of HanWay Films also said in a statement.
LaBeouf most recently starred in “The Peanut Butter Falcon” and “Honey Boy,” which made its premiere at Sundance and for which he wrote the screenplay. Gibson is also set to star in another title being introduced at Cannes called “Fatman,” and he’ll also be seen in the Black List thriller “Black Flies.”
LaBeouf is represented by CAA, John Crosby Management, and attorney Matt Saver; and Gibson by CAA. Baird is represented by CAA, Independent Talent Group, and Morris Yorn.
For the record: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the film was based on an Irvine Welsh novel.