Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon dive into Mud

Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon will star in Mud for director Jeff Nichols, it has been announced.

The perky blond twosome have signed up for the lead roles in what sounds like a whimsical drama from the Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter director.

Mud will see McConaughey playing a fugitive, who is aided by a young boy ( The Tree Of Life 's Tye Sheridan) in a mission to escape a Mississippi island to be reunited with his beloved Juniper (Witherspoon).

McConaughy got a recent credibility boost with his role in The Lincoln Lawyer , and he'll shoot The Paperboy with director Lee Precious Daniels before starting work on this one. He has also wrapped work on Richard Linklater's Bernie .

Witherspoon showed off her old-school class in Water For Elephants , and she has recently shot McG-directed romcom This Means War with Tom Hardy and Chris Pine.

Only this week she was linked to magical Disney comedy Wish List about a woman whose childhood wishes come true a couple of decades late.

Working with Nichols could be a good move for McConaughey and Witherspoon, as both have been guilty of falling into oversweet fluff in the past. Here's hoping the director give the pair something with a little edge…

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.