John Sayles Set Directing Return With I Passed This Way Starring Amy Madigan and Chris Cooper

One return to the director’s chair we’ve long-awaited is John Sayles. The Lone Star and Matewan helmer hasn’t made a film in 13 years, with his last release being the 2013 crime drama Go for Sisters. While he has publicly exclaimed difficulty in finding financing, it looks like things are finally moving forward on a new project.

Sayles will next direct the western I Passed This Way, with his script based on Eugene Manlove Rhodes’ novella Pasó Por Aquí and production beginning later this year. The cast is led by Oscar winners Amy Madigan and Chris Cooper alongside an ensemble including Thomas Mann, Ted Levine, Ron Perlman, and Cameron Monaghan.

Variety reports the film is set in 1898 and “turns on Ross McEwen, a cowboy who impulsively robs a bank and flees across the arid New Mexico Territory.” The synopsis continues: “As famed lawman Pat Garrett and his ambitious young deputy close in, Ross takes refuge at a remote Mexican homestead stricken by diphtheria. There he faces a desperate choice — leave the family to die and escape to Mexico, or stay and nurse them back to health, and go to jail. Ross must decide what kind of man he wants to be.”

The independent cinema maverick will shoot the project in the Canary Islands and Almería, Spain, backed by producers Alejandro Springall and Nadine Luque. Latido Films, which is handling international rights, will sell the film at the Cannes market along with UTA Independent Film Group, which handles North American sales. Hopefully a distributor picks this one up quickly.

Listen to our conversation with Sayles from last year below, or read here.