Variety reports that Matt Damon will star in the upcoming film Charlatan, starring as the real-life figure John R. Brinkley, who conned thousands of people in the early 20th century with a classic snake oil pitch.
In 1917, John R. Brinkley–America’s most brazen con man–introduced an outlandish surgical method for restoring fading male virility.
A competing project based on the life of John R. Brinkley is in the works from director Richard Linklater and set to star Robert Downey Jr. as the huckster.
Culminating in a decisive courtroom confrontation, Charlatan is a marvelous portrait of a boundlessly audacious rogue on the loose in an America ripe for the bamboozling.