JANE GOT A GUN: Ewan McGregor Replaces Bradley Cooper

That got your attention, didn’t it? The troubled Gavin O’Connor‘s Western Jane Got a Gun is back on track again – Ewan McGregor has taken over for Bradley Cooper as the villain.

The old west today, based on an original script by Anthony Tambakis and Brian Duffield, is a Star Wars reunion of sorts as McGregor will be joining Natalie Portman for the first time since Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith.

Production on the film runs through the summer for what will hopefully be a 2014 release, but the villain wasn’t scheduled to shoot until later into the production.

McGregor, the fifth actor to take the bad guy role for the part – Michael Fassbender, Joel Edgerton, Jude Law and Cooper are the previous ones- just wrapped production in Australia on Son of a Gun and will next be seen with Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep in August: Osage County.

Edgerton ended up moving over to the hero role, Portman character’s old love, when Fassbender left the project before the start of production.

Also starring Rodrigo Santoro, River Shields, Kristen Rakes and Jacob Browne, Jane Got a Gun filming is currently under way in New Mexico.

Here is the American Film Market plot synopsis:

Young and pretty with a soul of pure steel, Jane Hammond (Portman) is a good girl married to one of the worst baddies in town. When her husband Bill (Emmerich) turns against his own gang, the vicious Bishop Boys, and returns home barely alive with eight bullets in his back, Jane knows it’s time to ditch the dress for a pair of pants and strap on her own gun. As the relentless leader John Bishop (McGregor) gears up for revenge, Jane’s best hope for her family’s survival rests with her old love Dan Frost (Edgerton) – a gunslinger whose hatred for Bill is only slightly overshadowed by his love for Jane. Together Jane and Dan spring clever traps, luring Bishop’s men to certain death just as their old feelings for each other resurface amidst the flying bullets.