Austin Butler no doubt will steal each scene in Darren Aronofsky‘s crime caper “Caught Stealing.” The highly-anticipated ’90s-set novel adaptation stars Butler as a former baseball prodigy who gets literally caught up in a mob-fueled treasure hunt.
In a who’s who of NYC staples, Zoë Kravitz, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Griffin Dunne, and Carol Kane co-star in the gritty, LES-shot feature. Benito A. Martínez Ocasio AKA Bad Bunny, Matt Smith, and Regina King round out the buzzy cast.
The official synopsis reads: “Hank Thompson (Butler) was a high-school baseball phenom who can’t play anymore, but everything else is going okay. He’s got a great girl (Kravitz), tends bar at a New York dive, and his favorite team is making an underdog run at the pennant. When his punk-rock neighbor Russ (Smith) asks him to take care of his cat for a few days, Hank suddenly finds himself caught in the middle of a motley crew of threatening gangsters. They all want a piece of him; the problem is he has no idea why. As Hank attempts to evade their ever-tightening grip, he’s got to use all his hustle to stay alive long enough to find out…”
Aronofsky directs the feature from a screenplay by Charlie Huston, who wrote the book on which the film is based. Huston has a novel trilogy that follows Butler’s anti-hero character, with “Six Bad Things” and “A Dangerous Man” in the series.
“Caught Stealing” was shot in New York during the fall of 2024 by Aronofsky’s frequent cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, who also was the DP on Spike Lee’s latest film, “Highest 2 Lowest.” Aronofsky produces “Caught Stealing” along with Jeremy Dawson, Dylan Golden, and Ari Handel. Author Huston and Ann Ruark executive produce.
Aronofsky recently told Vanity Fair that after directing “The Whale” in 2023, he wanted to work on a film that was lighter in tone. That led him to revisit Huston’s script for “Caught Stealing,” which had been in the works for about 15 years. “I felt like there was just so much tension in our normal lives that I felt like the one thing that Hollywood has always done great is entertain. I looked at my projects and I said, ‘You know what? The most fun one I have is Charlie’s script,’” Aronofsky said.
He added during a French Cinematheque masterclass that the film is “just a crime caper that we tried to make really well — and that was a really fun activity. There’s nothing wrong with taking a classic genre and just trying to make it better, and to do things with real craft.”
Sony Pictures will release “Caught Stealing” in theaters August 29. Check out the trailer below.
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