Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: As Warner Bros prepares to open Ben Affleck’s Oscar-season entry Argo, the studio is in early talks with Affleck to star in Focus. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa wrote the script and will direct. Denise DiNovi is producing. All of this is subject to finding the right female lead, but it all sounds promising and Warner Bros is eager to move quickly and get this into production. Focus tells the story of a veteran con man who gets involved with a newcomer to the grifter business. They become  involved romantically but that becomes perilous in a business where they lie and cheat for a living. The complications of the encounter haunt them when they meet up again in the future.

I first wrote about Warner Bros’ purchase of the project in April, when the first notion was for the directors of Crazy, Stupid, Love to bring back that film’s leads, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. DiNovi produced that film as well. The Gosling-Stone configuration fell by the wayside awhile ago, but the studio is ready to go with Affleck and they have begun the search for the female lead.

Affleck is repped by WME as are Ficarra and Requa.