Sean Durkin is swapping wrestling for romance.
The “Iron Claw” director is set to write and helm the feature adaptation of novel “Deep Cuts.” Saoirse Ronan and Austin Butler will co-lead the film that centers on a love story between two music-obsessed twenty-somethings as they navigate the messy realities of ambition, belonging, and adulthood in the 2000s. Both Ronan and Butler are Academy Award-nominated actors.
IndieWire can confirm the feature. Deadline first reported the project.
“Deep Cuts” is Holly Brickley’s debut novel, which was published February 25. Durkin will both direct and adapt the book, with co-lead star Ronan producing. Central’s Ronald Bronstein, Eli Bush, and Josh Safdie are also producing the A24.
Durkin’s “The Iron Claw” was among the highest grossing A24 films of 2023. He is repped by UTA and Entertainment 360.
“Deep Cuts” isn’t Durkin’s first foray into music-centric features: The “Martha Marcy May Marlene” filmmaker was going to direct a Janis Joplin biopic starring Michelle Williams in 2016. Tony-winning actress Nina Arianda was previously set for the lead role circa 2012.
“Deep Cuts” star Ronan recently led “Blitz,” as well as memoir adaptation “The Outrun,” which she also produced. Ronan told IndieWire’s Kate Erbland that she hopes to star in a musical, ideally written by her “Little Women” and “Lady Bird” director Greta Gerwig.
“I’ve always wanted to do a musical,” Ronan said in 2024. “A lot of people say they want Greta to write us a musical and we’ll do that together. I think that would be really fun.”
She added, “I’ve also kind of got one eye on the fact that I have done a lot of independent pictures, which I love, but I don’t just want to be pigeonholed as ‘the indie girl.’ I want to do the big stuff as well. […] It doesn’t mean that they have to be ‘high-brow’ necessarily, but just I needed to connect them and I needed to feel like they were worth it.”
Ronan continued of how she selects roles, “The older I get and the richer my personal life is, the more consideration I have to put into saying yes to a job. I’m very, very lucky that I’m in the position where I can afford to say yes or no to a job, and I’m very aware of that. But it has to be something that I think is worth my energy. I think the older I’m getting, the more experienced I am, the more I want to be pushed, the more I want to be stretched as an actor. That’s always been there, but I feel like the more of a skillset you have, the more you want to be tested.”
She is repped by CAA and Relevant.
Meanwhile, Butler had a full 2024 slate with series “The Masters of Air” and films “Dune: Part Two” and “The Bikeriders.” He will also appear in Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Stealing” and Ari Aster’s “Eddington.” The actor is rumored to be circling Michael Mann’s “Heat 2” with Adam Driver, and was announced as the lead for Luca Guadagnino’s “American Psycho” reimagining, although the status of that feature is unknown. Butler is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern, and The Lede Company.
