Jared Leto to Make Directorial Debut With Patty Hearst Thriller ‘77’

During the production process for last summer’s Suicide Squad, Academy Award-winning actor Jared Leto attracted some headlines with his series of menacing pranks pulled on his costars. Mailing Margot Robbie dead animals or used condoms, threatening to stab David Ayer for giving notes, sending Will Smith a box of bullets — he’s full of wacky antics, and today brings the news of Leto’s latest put-on. As part of what I can only assume is his latest diabolical, Joker-style ruse, Leto has announced that he’s going to get into feature directing.

Deadline ran an item last night stating that Leto would take the director’s chair on 77, a period-set thriller about two detectives’ efforts to recover Patty Hearst in 1974 Los Angeles. As they search for the abducted heiress, the partners concurrently investigate the murder of one of their brothers in blue and find a labyrinthine conspiracy of Chinatownesque proportions. With a script from L.A. Confidential author James Ellroy and Boardwalk Empire and Narcos writer David Matthews, Leto will get his first feature directorial credit, having already helmed a handful of documentary shorts. As if the film’s pedigree wasn’t already sterling, Dick Wolf (a name you may recall from right after the final shot of every Law and Order episode) will produce. Whether Leto will also appear in front of the camera in the film has yet to be determined.

If we consider Jared Leto’s many shenanigans during the Suicide Squad press cycle to be at all indicative of his sensibilities as a creator, 77 will most likely be baffling, disgusting, and completely engrossing. One thing it won’t be is boring — Leto doesn’t really have that setting.