In Bruges Team To Reunite For Martin McDonagh’s Next Film

If you’ve never seen 2008 black comedy In Bruges, which sees Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson star as two Irish hitmen in hiding in the picturesque Belgian town of Bruges after a job gone wrong, then stop reading this article and do so immediately.

The hilarious buddy gore fest is the first feature-length film from Martin McDonagh, who would go on to win lots of things for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri(Bruges was also nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay), and it’s a cinematic delight, not the least of which because of Farrell and Gleeson’s performances and on-screen chemistry.

This is why it’s such good news to know that the dream team—Farrell, Gleeson, and McDonagh—are getting back together. According to Deadline, McDonagh’s next film will star Farrell and Gleeson. While we don’t yet know the title (or maybe McDonagh doesn’t have one?), we do know it will be set on a remote Irish isle.

Farrell and Gleeson will play two lifelong friends who “find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship with alarming consequences for both of them.” The film is setting up shop at Searchlight Pictures, with a budget close to $20 million, and is scheduled to shoot this summer. Good news for all of us, really.

McDonagh is an Irish-British writer (born and raised in London by Irish parents) who worked extensively in theater before moving into the film world. McDonagh’s first six plays—separated into two trilogies—are set in and around County Galway in Ireland where McDonagh would spend his holidays as a child. The first trilogy includes The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara, and The Lonesome West, and all are set in the small village of Leenane, located on the west coast of Ireland. 

The second trilogy includes The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and The Banshees of Inisheer(as of yet unpublished/yet to be staged), and is set on the Aran Islands, off the coast of Galway. In 2010, McDonagh wrote A Behandling of Spokane, his first play set in the United States. It starred Christopher Walken as a killer looking for a hand he lost in his youth, who was nominated for a Tony for the performance.

More news on the new film project as we hear it.