indieWIRE has the story:God damn if Ruben Fleischer doesn’t keep finding new ways to makes us excited about “Gangster Squad.” The “Zombieland” director is moving into more serious territory with Warner Brothers’ big-budget period actioner, and has assembled a mouth-watering cast of awards bait, with Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling and “Crash” star Michael Peña all confirmed for the film, written by ex-cop Will Beall, based on a series of L.A. Times articles about an L.A.P.D unit in the 1940s.
Now, one other name thought to be circling the project is officially locked in, with Variety reporting that fast-rising actor Anthony Mackie, last seen in “The Adjustment Bureau,” has now signed on to join Penn, Brolin, Gosling and Peña. The actor was rumored to be being courted for the film six weeks back, but it looks like things are now official: the actor will play an ex-cop, Rocky Washington, ‘the Sheriff of Central Avenue,’ the first black lieutenant in the LAPD who went back to be a beat cop, only to be recruited by Gosling and Brolin’s characters for their elite unite, which aims to take down legendary mobster Mickey Cohen (Penn).
