Dwight Yoakam And Dennis Quaid Set For Billy Bob Thornton's 'Jayne Mansfield's Car'

Last year Billy Bob Thornton started to talk about a late '60s-set family drama called Jayne Mansfield's Car. He and Tom Epperson wrote the script, in part as a response to the fact that Mr. Thornton wasn't all that taken with a lot of the films being made lately, and he plans to direct it this year. Robert Duvall was announced as one primary player, and now it looks like he'll be joined by Dwight Yoakam and Dennis Quaid.

The Playlist noticed a piece in the San Luis Obispo Tribune from last month in which Dwight Yoakam said,

Billy wrote a new screenplay titled 'Jane Mansfield's Car. And it's supposed to star myself, Billy Bob and Dennis Quaid as three brothers in 1969, who are ex-World War II vets wrestling with their own families and lives on a large cattle ranch in western Alabama.

Dwight Yoakam, of course, was part of Billy Bob Thornton's signature film Sling Blade — in fact, the role of Doyle Hargraves in that movie was the first big signature role for Dwight Yoakam, too.

Billy Bob Thornton previously said of the movie,

It takes place in 1969 in Alabama. It's a comedy drama, and it's about human relationships. This one deals a lot with how different generations view war and also it examines the randomness of life and death.

Robert Duvall was enthusiastic when he talked about the script, saying,

It's another Southern tale. It puts Tennessee Williams in the back seat — it's that brilliant... It's about a guy in between WWI and WWII who raises a family after his wife left him for an Englishman and moved to England... When the wife dies, she asks to be brought back to Alabama to be buried, and at that point the character hasn't seen her in 20 or 30 years. The two families — her original family she abandoned and her English family — meet and then things get really interesting.

So when will the film shoot? There has been some scouting in Georgia, but nothing seems to be set just yet. Financing might be an issue, but we'll keep looking for info on the film. I'd like to see a new film with Billy Bob Thornton in the director's chair, and this cast looks like a great, not quite typical trio.