Austin Butler

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Coming off his creepy villain turn in Dune: Part Two, Austin Butler is lining up a new feature.

Butler will star in the crime thriller Caught Stealing, which hails from filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. Sony has acquired the package, which is based on the book by Charlie Huston, and per the logline, it “follows Hank Thompson, a burned-out former baseball player, as he’s unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of ‘90s NYC.”

Huston penning the script. Aronofsky’s is producing via his Protozoa Pictures.

Butler rose to new levels of critical acclaim with 2022’s Elvis, the Baz Luhrmann biopic that earned Butler his first Oscar nomination. In Dune: Part Two, Butler earned a strong reaction for his work as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the psychotic villain who goes toe-to-toe with Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides. Coming up, he has 1960s motorcycle drama The Bikeriders out in June. On the small screen, he recently starred in the World War II aviation drama Masters of the Air for Apple TV+.

For Butler, the Caught Stealing teams him with yet another auteur after working with Dune 2’s Denis Villeneuve and Elvis’ Lurhmann. Aronofsky was last in theaters with 2022’s The Whale, which landed Brendan Fraser a best actor Oscar win in the year Butler was also nominated.

“I am excited to be teaming up with my old friends at Sony Pictures to bring Charlie’s adrenaline-soaked roller-coaster ride to life. I can’t wait to start working with Austin and my family of NYC filmmakers,” said Aronofsky.

Sony has a number of high-profile projects in the works, including Sam Mendes’ four-picture Beatles biopics and Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later.

“Darren is one of the most brilliant audiovisual storytellers in the world, and adapting these wonderful books by Charlie Huston for Austin to star was too exciting an opportunity to not be a part of,” said Sanford Panitch, president of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group.

Aronofsky is repped by CAA, Narrative and Goodman Genow. Butler is repped by WME, Anonymous Content and Sloane Offer. Huston is repped by Katz Golden Lerner and Writers House.

Deadline first reported the news.