Clint Eastwood reportedly working on his final film

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As he closes in on his 93rd birthday next month, Clint Eastwood is reportedly eyeing what could be his final film as a director.

Sources close to the actor tell the trade website DiscussingFilm that the feature will be a thriller titled Juror #2 and centres on a man summoned to deliberate a murder case who realizes that he may have caused the victim’s death.

As the trial unfolds, the juror “must grapple with the dilemma of whether to manipulate the jury to save himself, or reveal the truth and turn himself in.”

The film will mark Eastwood’s 40th as a director in a career that has spanned nearly 70 years.

The four-time Oscar winner most recently directed and starred in 2021’s Cry Macho, a Western drama that cast the Hollywood icon as a washed-up rodeo star hired to reunite a boy with his father.

According to DiscussingFilm, Juror #2 is being set up with Warner Bros., a studio which Eastwood has had a long-lasting partnership with for most of his career.

Although the title is being “internally billed” as his last film, the trade says that “there’s still a small chance” he will continue to work beyond Juror #2.

More recently, some of Eastwood’s films like American Sniper, Sully, The 15:17 to Paris and Richard Jewell have focused on real-life heroes.

“I just enjoy them as stories and I can see them as I’m reading it,” Eastwood told the Sun in a 2019 interview.

His work on Richard Jewell, which told the story of how the security guard was wrongly accused in the 1996 bombing at the Summer Olympics, was a “good example of that.”

“How could someone get screwed over so bad? There have been many cases in life that have gone that way, but it’s so odd. One day you’re on top of the world and the next day you’re at the bottom of the heap.”

Eastwood said that he “felt for” Jewell and his family.

“The guy had a nice little life going. Sure, he made some mistakes, but he was just a regular Joe. Then, all of a sudden, he got screwed completely,” Eastwood said.

But towards the end of our lengthy chat, Eastwood shared a piece of advice he got early on in his career that guided him through the rest of his work as a filmmaker.

“I was making my first picture as a director, Play Misty for Me, and (director Don Siegel) said to me, ‘I just got one thing to say: Don’t short yourself.’ I remember thinking, ‘What does that mean?’ And it was to be considerate, but don’t think your own happiness doesn’t matter. You’ll be accused of being egotistical, but don’t worry about that. Just don’t short yourself.

“Make yourself the best you can be,” Eastwood added with a smile. “That was good advice.”

mdaniell@postmedia.com