A decade after his last directorial effort, news filtered through last year that Billy Bob Thornton had finished a script for a post-war drama titled “Jayne Mansfield’s Car” with Tom Epperson and that he was set to direct and star along side Robert Duvall.
Now, in a month-old story we’ve only just caught up with, musician Dwight Yoakam has revealed he’s set to reunite with his “Sling Blade” director on this latest venture, starring with Thornton and Dennis Quaid as a trio of siblings. “Billy wrote a new screenplay titled ‘Jayne Mansfield’s Car,’” Yoakam told the San Luis Obispo. “And it’s supposed to star myself, Billy Bob and Dennis Quaid as three brothers in 1969, who are ex-World War II vets wrestling with their own families and lives on a large cattle ranch in western Alabama.”
A previous collaborator with Thornton musically on Warren Zevon‘s 2003 swan song album The Wind, singer-songwriter Yoakam has had a few acting gigs over the years namely as one of the villains in David Fincher‘s “Panic Room,” the sheriff in “The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada” and, of course, the alcoholic father boyfriend in Thornton’s “Sling Blade.” This role, though, certainly sounds like one of his biggest challenges yet.
“It takes place in 1969 in Alabama,” Thornton explained last year. “It’s a comedy drama, and it’s about human relationships. This one deals a lot with how different generations view war and also it examines the randomness of life and death.”
The project was also once touted by Duvall early on as a potential reunion with “Godfather” co-star James Caan though whether that is still the case remains to be seen — at this point, we doubt it. Last year, the film was pegged to shoot in the spring of 2011, but obviously that’s come and gone. However, Thornton has been spotted scouting in North Georgia so a 2011 start does look possible.
