He hit it big as a screenwriter, rose and fell as an actor, and even dabbled in presidential politics, and now Ben Affleck is trying his hand in the director’s chair.
The actor who won an Oscar for co-writing 1997’s “Good Will Hunting” with his buddy Matt Damon, has signed up to direct a movie titled “Gone, Baby, Gone,” for The Walt Disney Co.’s Touchstone Pictures, a Disney spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The film is adapted from writer Dennis Lehane’s novel of the same name. Lehane also wrote “Mystic River,” which was turned into an Oscar-nominated movie in 2003 by actor/director Clint Eastwood.
The novel “Gone, Baby, Gone,” tells of two working class private detectives in Boston, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, who are hired to search from a missing child.
The film version is expected to begin shooting this fall in Boston.
Affleck, 32, has seen career ups and downs as an actor in recent years. He scored hits with 2001’s “Pearl Harbor” and with thrillers “Changing Lanes” and “Daredevil,” but more recently suffered through duds such as “Gigli,” “Jersey Girl” and “Paycheck.”
During the 2004 presidential campaign, he helped raise money for Democratic challenger John Kerry.