Well, that didn’t take long. A little more than a week after losing director Lee Isaac Chung to “creative differences,” the long-gestating Ocean’s 11 prequel may have found someone to replace him — and the studio didn’t have to look far to find their new man, either.
According to rumors published by World of Reel and a variety of other outlets, Bradley Cooper is now the odds-on favorite to step in behind the cameras when the project gets going. Of course, if you’ve been following along with the prequel’s development, you already know he’ll be pulling double duty if these rumors prove true, because Cooper was already on board to star in the movie alongside Margot Robbie, who’s also one of the movie’s producers.
While intriguing, reports of Cooper replacing Chung are admittedly rather thinly sourced at this juncture. The story started with Matt Belloni of Puck, who tweeted that while no deals have been signed yet, Cooper is “the choice.” There’s no reason to doubt Belloni’s credibility — he regularly makes television appearances as an industry expert, and he was the editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter from 2016-2020 — but it’s still worth noting that without corroboration, this is all still hearsay. On the other hand, it’s also easy to see how this would make sense; not only is Cooper near at hand, he’s also an established director with a pair of heavily acclaimed efforts under his belt in A Star Is Born and Maestro.
The speed of Cooper’s rumored selection might make sense for another reason. As many outlets noted when Chung departed the project, Warner Bros. is on the clock when it comes to getting things moving here, given that they’re currently in the process of being absorbed by Paramount. Although there’s no strict timetable for acquisitions of this size, what is known is that Warners will emerge from the deal with less creative autonomy, and if they want to make sure the Ocean’s prequel is a lock, it makes sense to get cameras rolling while they’re still their own studio.
Fortunately, that shouldn’t be too difficult, at least in theory. While the movie’s had a hard time hanging onto directors — Chung was hired after the departure of Jay Roach — it’s set for its screenplay, which was written by Carrie Solomon. If Cooper does sign on the dotted line, the Ocean’s prequel will have one star as its director and another star as a producer, and having all that combined firepower on the same set could help drag it across the finish line at long last.
No matter how the prequel pans out, Ocean’s fans could still have new heists on the horizon. Warners is also developing the next sequel in the series, titled Ocean’s Fourteen, and although Matt Damon recently threw a little cold water on our hopes of actually seeing it anytime soon, this franchise keeps managing to find a way forward.
- Release Date
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December 7, 2001
- Runtime
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116 minutes
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
