When Paramount Pictures first developed this as a project for the director/star team of
David Fincher and
Brad Pitt,
Mark Wahlberg was wanted for the opposite leading role (as this is a Boston-set story). However, Fincher and Pitt moved on to other commitments. Paramount almost signed on the star duo of Pitt and Wahlberg for another Boston-set drama,
The Fighter (2010), a couple years later. Pitt eventually had to drop out of that project, as well.
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