First look at Shia LaBeouf in John Hillcoat’s The Wettest County in the World

One of the film’s I’m most anticipating to see is the John Hillcoat (THE ROAD, THE PROPOSITION) period adaptation THE WETTEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD. Hillcoat’s a fine director, and the film boasts a ridiculously great cast: Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, Guy Pearce, Jason Clarke, and Jessica Chastain (and let’s not forget the involvement of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis). This is a project to be excited for.

Today, courtesy of the Beef lovers over at fan site Shiantology, we’ve got our first look at Shia LaBeouf in costume as one of the film’s two bootlegging brothers (the other being Tom Hardy).

THE WETTEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD is currently in production.

The book’s synopsis: In 1928, a pair of thieves accost Bondurant’s real life great-uncle Forrest at his Franklin County, Va., restaurant. They’re after a large cache of bootlegging money and end up cutting Forrest’s throat. The story of his survival and his trek to a hospital 12 miles away has taken on mythical proportions by the time Sherwood Anderson arrives in Franklin County in 1934 to research a magazine piece on the area’s prolific moonshiners. Soon after Anderson’s arrival, two anonymous men appear at the same hospital, one with legs “meticulously shattered” from ankle to hip, the other one castrated, with the by-products of the deed deposited in a jar of moonshine. The arc of the story lies between the attack on Forrest and that on the two men.