K.T Simpson
Power-duo Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are teaming up again, with Paramount to produce “The Shadows”, the story of America’s first detectives. It be produced through their production banner Pearl Street Films, also alongside Jennifer Todd, with Chris Bremner behind the pitch.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be the Matthew Pearl’s Boston Globe Magazine article “Into the Shadows,” and will tell the story of the country’s first undercover officers, which were first organized in Boston, the hometown of Damon and Affleck.
The gist of the story: In the late 1840s, Boston was a growing town of almost 140,000 but only had 30 police officers and 150 patrolmen, according to the account. With crime rampant, the mayor gave the nod to the creation of a task force known as “The Shadows,” the first police force to work with criminal informants, wear plain clothes and go undercover. The group revolutionized law enforcement as it blurred the lines between right and wrong amidst the xenophobia and hysteria of the nation’s first great immigration wave.
