In 2013 Gus Van Sant with Promised Land it told the story of a rural society willing to do anything to avoid giving up its territory to an energy company. The film, with a first-rate cast, was originally supposed to have another director in charge of the project.
Already from the trailer of Promised Land you could understand how much this was a different film than the others made by Van Sant throughout his career. This feeling of alienation was nothing more than the consequence of the fact that in reality, at the beginning, the director should have been someone else and, above all, the most unpredictable of all. Promised Land, in fact, should have been Matt Damon’s sparkling directorial debut who, up to that point, had only worked as an actor and screenwriter.
Due to the very little time available to prepare the film and some problems in scheduling the film, Damon was forced to abandon the project as director but decided to continue playing the protagonist. Gus Van Sant was contacted later by the production which, suddenly, was left without a director and was forced to start shooting the film in a very short time.
To find out more about the film, we recommend our review of Promised Land. What do you think? Tell us in the comments!
