The Hangover star Bradley Cooper is now set to replace Shia LaBeouf in Neil Burger’s (The Illusionist) upcoming thriller, Dark Fields. The film is an adaptation of the Alan Glynn book of the same name, and will feature a script by eclectic screenwriter, Leslie Dixon (The Thomas Crowne Affair, Mrs. Doubtfire, Hairspray). The film is among many projects Cooper has signed on for post-Hangover (which is strange, because I still know the guy best as Sydney Bristow’s best friend on Alias).

Cooper will play a struggling writer who takes a top-secret pharmaceutical drug that makes him smarter. He finds success, but also comes to learn there are consequences, such as the phenomenon “trip-switching” which makes him perceive time moving similar to stop-motion.

The official book description follows:

Imagine a drug that makes your brain function with perfect efficiency, tapping into your most fundamental resources of intelligence and drive, releasing all the passive knowledge you’d ever accumulated. A drug that made you focused, charming, fast, even attractive. Eddie Spinola is on such a drug. It’s called MDT-48, and it’s Viagra for the brain-a designer drug that’s redesigning his life. But while MDT is helping Eddie achieve the kind of success he’s only dreamed about, it’s also chipping away at his sanity-splitting headaches, spontaneous blackouts, violent outbursts. And now that he’s hooked and his supply is running low, Eddie must venture into the drug’s dark past to feed his habit. What he discovers proves that MDT, once a dream come true, has become his worst nightmare.

The film sounds like a trippy technothriller, and Burger has proven able to acquit himself well to more fantastical stories with The Illusionist. Cooper also has some genre experience with Midnight Meat Train, but then again there’s no telling how watered down this film adaptation will be from Glynn’s novel.

[Source: THR Heat Vision Blog]