The Bookie & the Bruiser: The Monkey’s Theo James joins Vince Vaughn for the upcoming gangster thriller

Big casting news for Vince Vaughn‘s upcoming gangster thriller, The Bookie & the Bruiser, is upon us! Theo James (The Monkey, The White Lotus, The Gentlemen) is joining Vince Vaughn (Bad Monkey, Dragged Across Concrete, Brawl in Cell Block 99) for the upcoming feature about living life dangerously in New York City in the 1950s.

The Bookie & the Bruiser finds Vaughn reuniting with S. Craig Zahler, who directed the actor’s Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete. Like the films above, Zahler will write and direct The Bookie & the Bruiser with Academy Award-winner Anthony Katagas (12 Years a Slave, Ad Astra, Adrian Lyne’s Deep Water) producing via Keep Your Head Productions alongside Dave Caplan (Longlegs, The Monkey).

The Bookie & the Bruiser is set in 1959 New York City and features a pensive, Jewish fellow named Rivner (James) and an oversized Italian American tough named Boscolo (Vaughn). Having served in World War II, the two return as changed men, no longer fitting into their old lives. Unwilling to take orders or play by the rules of polite society, the two partner up as a bookmaker and his enforcer and run an illicit gambling operation that proves highly profitable—but dangerous. Their operation thrives until they’re caught in a violent power struggle between the Mafia and an Irish gang, forcing them into a violent fight for survival.

Theo James, who played Four in the Divergent film series, recently starred in Osgood Perkins’s adaptation of The Monkey, based on a short story by Stephen King. The darkly comedic splatter horror film was a hit with fans of the genre, grossing $68.7M worldwide. James recently wrapped production on Fuze, an action thriller directed by David Mackenzie. Fuze tells the story of an unexploded WWII bomb discovered on a busy construction site in the center of London. Chaos ensues as the military and police begin a mass evacuation against a ticking clock.

In addition to his acting work, Vince Vaughn produced Carlyle Eubank’s Broke, which starred Wyatt Russell (Thunderbolts*) and Dennis Quaid (The Substance, Running Man). In Broke, True Brandywine (Russell), a struggling rodeo rider, gets trapped in a blizzard and must confront his life choices while battling the elements for survival. We have an exclusive interview with Russell and Quaid about their new film on the site.

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