Woody Harrelson Joins The Amazing Ensemble In John Hillcoat's 'Triple Nine'

With Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Winslet, Michael B. Jordan, Aaron Paul, Michael Pena, Teresa Palmer, and Gal Gadot already on board, you'd think that the upcoming John Hillcoat heist film Triple Nine would be done with its casting process, but apparently there was at least one more name that the production wanted to add before closing time. Woody Harrelson, fresh off his critically-acclaimed performance in the HBO series True Detective, is reportedly the latest big name to sign on for the movie.

Based on an original screenplay by writer Matt Cook, the ensemble film follows a group of corrupt cops who find themselves in serious trouble. The Russian mafia is blackmailing them, and the only way to deal with them is to perform what is believed to be an extremely challenging heist. Impossible as it may seem, however, they eventually hatch a plan: on one side of town half of the crew will beat down a rookie cop (Affleck), and while the rest of the force is distracted by a 999 call ("officer down"), the other half of the corrupt cops will pull off the job. This all seems like it's going to work until the rookie cop winds up surviving the attack and fighting back.

Deadline, which initially reported the news of Harrelson's casting, says that the actor will be playing Sergeant Detective Jeffrey Allen, the uncle of Affleck's character (it's not quite clear where he stands on the morality scale at this point, though). It was just last year that the Harrelson and Affleck acted together for the first time, co-starring in Scott Cooper's dark drama Out of the Furnace:

While Harrelson has certainly become one of the best go-to character actors, he seems to be keeping his schedule a bit light for the moment. The actor is currently busy filming both The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2 - the first of which will be coming out this year - and Triple 9 appears to be his only other in-development project of the moment. Maybe he's just trying to avoid causing burnout after seeing him in hour-long segments on a weekly basis for the last few months.

Triple Nine - which will be Hillcoat's first film since 2012's Lawless is scheduled to start production this summer, presumably after Harrelson has hung up his Haymitch Abernathy wig. To get you ready for what you can expect from the film tonally and stylistically, watch the trailers below:

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.