Michael Fassbender in ‘The Counselor’

When Michael Fassbender (Prometheus, 12 Years a Slave) and director Lynne Ramsay (Morvern Callar, We Need To Talk About Kevin) dropped out of the film Jane Got Her Gun, fans of the German actor were disappointed at the missed opportunity to see him in a Western. It looks like Fassbender was disappointed as well, because he has recently joined an upcoming project with short film director John Maclean. The two have worked together on the short films Man on a Motorcycle and Pitch Black Heist, and their first feature length collaboration will be a Western called Slow West.

No information is available on the story, however Fassbender will star alongside Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road, Let Me In) and Ben Mendelsohn (Killing Them Softly, The Place Beyond the Pines).

Filming for Slow West is set to start in New Zealand later this year. However audiences will have plenty of Fassbender action to keep them satisfied in the meantime. He plays as a cruel plantation owner in Steve McQueen’s historical drama 12 Years a Slave which won wide acclaim at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals, and will hit theaters in October. Also in theaters this October, Fassbender stars as a lawyer who attempts to dabble in illegal drug trade in the Ridley Scott and Cormac McCarthy collaboration The Counselor. Fassbender is also set to star in Assassin’s Creed which will begin filming after Slow West wraps up, and is expected to hit theaters in 2015.