With the strike over and done with, here’s Clint Eastwood, all smiles, sporting a recently grown beard, on the set of “Juror #2.” The film is supposed to finally wrap production on Sunday or Monday. One of the real bummers of the SAG-AFTRA strike was the production halt of 93-year-old Eastwood’s, supposedly, “final film,” which has been shooting in Georgia these last two weeks.
Eastwood works very quickly, so it shouldn’t come as much of a stretch to believe that he’ll be done post-production on this one in a few months. It’s coming out in 2024 and I’m hoping, praying, for a Cannes premiere. The last Eastwood to premiere on the Croisette was 2008’s “Changeling” and scheduling is aligning quite well for “Juror #2” to be there.
A few months back, THR had reported that Eastwood “wanted to find one last project in order to be able to ride off into the sunset with his head held high.” He found the script for “Juror No. 2” and said this is “the one”. This will probably be the narrative used by Warner Bros. during next year’s, awards season: “Clint’s final film”.
“Juror No. 2” stars Toni Collette, Nicholas Hoult, Kiefer Sutherland and Zoey Deutch. The film is “set during a murder trial where one of the jurors slowly realizes he killed the victim in a reckless-driving accident and tries to save the defendant without incriminating himself.”
Eastwood’s last film was one of the worst of his career, 2021’s “Cry Macho,” but he’s been fairly consistent as a filmmaker having released, just these last few years, 2018’s “The Mule,” and 2019’s “Richard Jewell” — both very good.
“Juror #2” is set to be Eastwood’s 40th film.