According to the Hollywood Reporter, Eastwood was aware that his next film would be his last and wanted a project that allowed him to bow out with dignity. Eastwood has never been a director prone to grand, sweeping sentimentality, often affecting a workmanlike attitude to his filmmaking. It will be fitting it “Juror No. 2” has no sense of grand career closure, and is, instead, a straightforward story told in Eastwood’s soft, laconic style.
The script for “Juror No. 2” was written by Jonathan Abrams, previously an associate producer on the 2013 sci-fi film “Ecape Plan” with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Eastwood has previously asked Charlize Theron to appear, but she was unable to appear for undisclosed reasons. Theron almost appeared in Eastwood’s 2011 biopic “J. Edgar,” but dropped out of that project as well.
Eastwood will also produce — he’s produced the bulk of his more recent projects -—alongside Adam Goodman (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”), as well as Tim Moore and Jessica Meier, the co-producing duo that has been working with Eastwood for two decades.
While Eastwood initially built his on-screen reputation playing tough guys, violent heroes, and grizzled cynics, his films as a director tend to be mellow to the point of near somnambulism. He likes straightforward performances, hazy, halcyon photography, and no-frills sound design. His heroes tend to be everymen and everywomen who are often abused by a larger system they resent and cannot control. “Hereafter” notwithstanding, there are rarely supernatural elements in his movies. If his final film is a gentle, moral struggle of a man tempted by complacency, it will surely be fitting.
