Gigantic Rumor: Brad Pitt For Red Dead Redemption

Vapor warning: a gossip blog is reporting that Brad Pitt is the lead choice to play John Marston in a film version of the Rockstar Western video game Red Dead Redemption. Well, guess what? Sure he is! He's Brad effin' Pitt, which means he's the first choice to play at least twenty-five percent of the leading roles floating around studio executive desks right now. But because the 'rumor' is now out there, it's going to be everywhere, so we might as well manage expectations right now.

So does this mean that a Red Dead Redemption movie is happening? Or that it is happening soon, and with Pitt? No. It could happen, and if it does, there's an outside chance that it would happen with Pitt, but don't even start to thinking about getting hung up on this idea just yet. Go watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford again and be happy.

Here's the rundown on just the first part of the plot of the game, which is a massively sprawling affair. This wouldn't be a quick or low-budget thing if done according to the specs laid down by the game. All of which makes it a less likely proposition.

In the year 1911, John Marston, a retired outlaw formerly of a gang led by Dutch van der Linde, is taken away from his wife Abigail and his son Jack by government agents. The agents tell Marston that his family will be safely returned to him if he hunts down the remaining lead members of his former gang. Left with no choice, Marston travels to the territory of New Austin to capture or kill one of his old friends, Bill Williamson, who now runs his own gang of bandits out of Fort Mercer. Marston confronts Williamson at the fort, only to be shot and left for dead outside the fort. A rancher, Bonnie MacFarlane, finds him wounded, and brings him to a doctor to be treated.

After recovering from his wounds several days later, Marston begins repaying the MacFarlanes for their help. At the same time, he recruits help for a plan to attack Fort Mercer. Along with U.S Marshal Leigh Johnson of Armadillo, con man Nigel West Dickens, grave robber Seth Briars and drunken arms dealer Irish, Marston uses a Trojan Horse strategy to breach the fort and massacre Williamson's gang, only to find that Williamson had already fled to Mexico to seek help from Javier Escuella, another member of Marston's old gang. Irish agrees to take Marston into Mexico over the river border.