Experiencing a renaissance in a career that never really faded, Jeff Bridges is flexing his producing muscles to bring to the big screen a classic young adult novel.
Bridges, who won an Oscar in 2010 for his turn in "Crazy Heart" and was nominated for another lead gold statue for last year's "True Grit," has optioned for film the 1993 Lois Lowry novel, "The Giver," a moralist sci-fi story that won the Newberry Medal, the top honor in young adult fiction.
Set in a seemingly perfect society, without crime, poverty, hatred, divorce or war, the novel is described thusly on Lowry's official site:
December is the time of the annual Ceremony at which each twelve year old receives a life assignment determined by the Elders. Jonas watches his friend Fiona named Caretaker of the Old and his cheerful pal Asher labeled the Assistant Director of Recreation. But Jonas has been chosen for something special. When his selection leads him to an unnamed man -the man called only the Giver -he begins to sense the dark secrets that underlie the fragile perfection of his world.
The Giver, it turns out, is the elderly man charged with keeping the institutional memory for the society, which actually stifles desire and subdues familial differences for the ordered good of society.
Bridges will take on the role of that wise elder, though he is his own second choice.
"I originally thought of the role of the Giver as a vehicle for my father, the late Lloyd Bridges," he told Variety, "however, at 61 years old I feel the time is right for me to do it."
The actor will star in another sci-fi film, though this one is decidedly more mature, as he takes on the role of an old, undead cop alongside Ryan Reynolds in "RIPD." In totally unrelated news, he'll also be releasing his first album, a country folk jaunt produced by T. Bone Burnett, on August 16th.
For more, click over to Variety.