The Bookie and the Bruiser | Vince Vaughn/Adrien Brody

[Pennywise]

Set in 1959 New York, “The Bookie & the Bruiser” follows a pensive, Jewish fellow named Rivner and an oversized Italian-American tough named Boscolo from the Lower East Side, both of whom served overseas during WWII and returned changed men who no longer fit inside the lives they’d left behind. Uninterested in taking orders from bosses or playing by the rules of polite society, the two friends partner up as a bookmaker and an enforcer and create an illicit gambling operation that proves to be very profitable, though risky, and their situation gets rather sticky when they find themselves stuck between a powerful Irish gang and the Mafia. The film is currently in pre-production and is planned for a fall 2024 shoot.