FIRST LOOK

First On-Set Photo from John Wells' The Company Men

by Alex Billington
April 27, 2009
Source: Flickr

They're already shooting this? That was my first reaction to this photo. We only last wrote about The Company Men back in late March, when it was announced that both Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones would star alongside of Ben Affleck. The film is "ER" and "The West Wing" producer John Wells' directorial debut from a script that he also wrote himself. It's an ensemble drama about the impact that corporate downsizing has on both its casualties and survivors. We have the first unofficial photo today from Flickr (via SlashFilm) and some additional casting news, even though this has been shooting since early April.

The photo (seen above) shows Ben Affleck in some standard corporate business wear standing outside of a financial building in Boston. Affleck plays a corporate hotshot whose Porsche and salary vanish after he gets laid off. As for the rest of the cast, Variety announced yesterday that Maria Bello and Craig T. Nelson have joined. Nelson plays the CEO of the global conglomerate that Affleck works for, Tommy Lee Jones plays a levelheaded senior partner in the firm, and Bello plays the human resources VP who must fire Affleck. Rosemarie DeWitt plays Affleck's wife, Costner plays his brother-in-law, who gives him a construction job.

The Company Men is an independently financed production, without any studio involvement, which may be a wink to the way executives at studios work. Considering Wells' is a former producer, he probably knows how hard it would be to get this made the way he wants with a studio involved. I'm actually looking forward to this quite a bit, because it's got a great ensemble cast and I love seeing cinematic stories about the corporate world (like Michael Clayton). I think The Company Men will be a rather eye-opening look at corporations and the way businesses work, which should be interesting to see in our current economy.

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