Affleck Signs On to Star in and Direct New Film

Fresh off the rousing success that was last year's Gone Baby Gone, which saw Ben Affleck make his directorial debut (for which he wasn't nominated for an Academy Award, but his brother was for best actor), Affleck has signed on to direct another movie.

Only this time, he will have to balance rewriting the script before shooting as well as acting in the film too.

The movie he has signed on to do is called The Town, a film whose rights belong to Warner Bros. The Town is an adaptation of Chuck Hogan's novel, The Prince of Thieves.



Graham King has signed on to produce it under his GK Films company.



Affleck will be the star of the movie, where he will play a career thief who falls in love with the manager of a bank.



The project recently had director Adrian Lyne attached to direct, but now Affleck will call the shots in Charlestown, Mass., near the place where Affleck grew up. Another large factor in tapping Affleck to direct was that he captured a similar setting so well with Gone Baby Gone.