UPDATE: Fred Melamed, who is part of the ensemble, tells me that the project is now eyeing an “early 2026” production start. My best guess is that Brody will be too busy this year and might even be shooting Damien Chazelle’s next film in the summer.
EARLIER: I’ve been asked a few times about this one, so I decided to ask around. It’s been six years since “Dragged Across Concrete,” and S. Craig Zahler is ready for more bruising cinema. He was set to direct “The Bookie & the Bruiser” this year, but a source close to the production now tells me it’s been “pushed back,” and there’s no confirmed start date yet.
Zahler was slated to reunite with his “Dragged Across Concrete” and “Brawl in Cell Block 99” star, Vince Vaughn, along with two-time Oscar winner Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”). Brody’s involvement appears to be the sticking point — he recently won an Oscar and is carefully considering his next project. I’m told Brody remains committed to the film.
Last fall, in an interview with Collider, Vaughn said the film had been slightly delayed and was now scheduled to be shot in early 2025. This was most likely due to Brody's sudden surge in the awards race.
“The Bookie & The Bruiser” is set in 1959 New York and follows a pensive Jewish man named Rivner and an oversized Italian-American tough guy named Boscolo from the Lower East Side. Both served overseas during WWII and returned as changed men. They end up partnering with a bookmaker and an enforcer to create an illicit gambling operation that proves highly profitable, though risky. Things take a turn when they find themselves caught between a powerful Irish gang and the Mafia.
Zahler is very much what one might call a methodical filmmaker, depicting the madness of morally tortured men in uncomfortably precise ways. His dialogue tends to pack a satisfying snap, and the action almost always unfolds in unbearably excruciating fashion.
The prospect of a new Zahler film arriving in 2025 was supposed to be great news, as he remains one of the more compelling cinematic voices to emerge over the past decade. Zahler’s three films as a director— “Bone Tomahawk,” “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” and especially “Dragged Across Concrete”—speak for themselves.