Laurence Fishburne & Casey Affleck Join Sci-Fi Thriller Movie Slingshot

Laurence Fishburne and Casey Affleck have been cast in the upcoming science-fiction thriller Slingshot. Since his Best Actor Oscar win for Manchester By The Sea, Affleck has starred in smaller indie films such as David Lowery’s A Ghost Story in 2017, and in 2019 directed and starred in father-and-son drama Light of My Life. Fishburne, a veteran film actor, has recently been dabbling the world of TV in series such as Black-ish, and most recently starred in this year’s The Ice Road alongside Liam Neeson.

As reported by Variety, Fishburne and Affleck have now joined the cast of Slingshot. Mikael Hafstrom, whose previous films include the Sylvester Stallone-Arnold Schwarzenegger crossover blockbuster Escape Plan, and this years futuristic Netflix film Outside the Wire, will direct the movie. Slingshot will follow an astronaut struggling to keep his sanity while manning a mission to Saturn’s moon, Titan. The film is set to begin production on December 1.

Fishburne and Affleck join English actress Emily Beecham in the cast, who has previously collaborated with Hafstrom on Outside the Wire and this year featured in Disney’s Cruella. Also already attached are Tomer Kapon and David Morrissey, of The Boys and The Walking Dead fame respectively. Bringing the heft of Hollywood A-Lister status and Academy Award notoriety, Fishburne and Affleck will likely take on the starring roles, although it is unconfirmed who will be playing the aforementioned psychologically-tormented astronaut that the film centres around.

Fishburne has a solid track record within the science-fiction genre, starring in the underrated cult classic, Event Horizon, as well as his career defining role as Morpheus in the original The Matrix trilogy. The actor has denied his rumored return as Morpheus in the long-awaited The Matrix Resurrections, so this latest announcement gives Fishburne the opportunity to once again focus on promoting his upcoming works. This is also not Affleck’s first role in the sci-fi genre, since he featured in Christopher Nolan’s 2014 mind-bending epic Interstellar as the adult Tom Cooper, previously played by a young Timothee Chalamet.

Little else is yet known about Slingshot, but if the recruiting of Hafstrom to direct is anything to go by, then it is sure to be an action-packed rollercoaster of a film. Judging by Hafstrom’s previous efforts, Slingshot may not be a sure-fire masterpiece, as his filmography is a mixed-bag of successes and failures to say the least. Regardless, the inclusion of such talent as Laurence Fishburne and Casey Affleck immediately bestow the film with a definite credibility and assurance of quality that hopefully promises an entry at the higher end of Hafstrom’s filmography.

Source: Variety

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