Damon, Brolin, Bridges Saddle Up for 'True Grit' Remake

Matt Damon and Josh Brolin may be saddling up to join Jeff Bridges in Ethan and Joel Coen's upcoming remake of 'True Grit,' the iconic 1969 Western that introduced Rooster Cogburn to the world.

Bridges, who immortalized the Dude in the Coen's 'The Big Lebowski,' has already been tapped to play Cogburn, a role that John Wayne made famous and that earned him a Best Actor Oscar. Damon, who has not worked with the Coens before, would co-star as a Texas Ranger (played by Glen Campbell in the original) who teams up with the hard-drinking, hard-nosed U.S. Marshal Cogburn to help a stubborn young woman track down her father's murderer in Indian territory. Brolin, who scored big in the Coens' 'No Country for Old Men,' would play the outlaw that sets the action into motion (Jeff Corey played the killer in the original).

According to a report in Variety, the Coens are producing with Scott Rudin and Steven Spielberg for Paramount Pictures, which is aiming for a March production and a late 2010 release. Variety also reports that the Coens have written a script more faithful to the Charles Portis novel that inspired the original.

No one has been cast for the role of the young woman, originally played by Kim Darby.

This is not the Coens' first reimagining; they tackled a remake of the 1955 Alec Guinness comedy 'The Ladykillers' with mixed results. And, of course, it's not their first Western -- but it will be their first feature set in the old West. Given the brothers' penchant for turning genre films on their head, we can only wait with bated breath for their take on Cogburn: the Dude meets Barton Fink?