Nicolas Cage to Lead Prison-Gang True-Crime Film The Brand

Nicolas Cage, Alexander Ludwig, Gabriel Basso and Maria Bakalova are set to star in the true-crime film The Brand, according to Deadline. The project is based on an investigative article in The New Yorker by David Grann, and Vincent Grashaw will direct from a screenplay by Alessandro Camon.

Ludwig plays Taylor Hartman, a young lifer taken under the wing of Carter Briggs, the feared leader of San Quentin's dominant white prison gang, played by Cage. Bakalova plays Lilly, the woman Taylor loves. Basso is also among the announced cast.

Fortitude International has picked up international sales rights and will sell the film at AFM next week, while WME Independent is representing U.S. rights. The film is slated to start pre-production early next year.

Producers and backers

The Brand is an Identity Media production in association with Gramercy Park Media. Producers include Anthony Mastromauro, Nathan Klingher, Ford Corbett, Cage and Camon.

The project has been in the works for more than a decade as both a film and a TV prospect. Grann's stories previously served as source material for Killers of the Flower Moon, James Gray's The Lost City of Z and David Lowery's The Old Man and the Gun. Klingher worked with Cage previously on The Surfer.