Samuel L. Jackson is fairly or unfairly chastised for taking nearly everything his agent passes along. But what’s the alternative? People like Kevin Costner and Kate Hudson take on far less work, but this has caused both to go better parts of a decade without a truly memorable film. So what if Samuel L. Jackson fails with The Spirit and Lakeview Terrace when he’s also making groundbreaking, original movies like Black Snake Moan, The Red Violin, and Pulp Fiction? Isn’t that all we’ll remember in ten years anyways? I hypothesize it is. And thanks to this all-encompassing game plan we’re now going to get Samuel L. Jackson in a movie about rape with the manager of Coyote Ugly and the chubby girl from Little Miss Sunshine.

According to Variety, our generation’s John Shaft has signed on to join the cast of Rape: A Love Story. The indie flick also starring Maria Bello (The Cooler) and Abigail Breslin (No Reservations) is a Joyce Carol Oates adaptation about a woman trying to move on after a vicious gang rape, as the attackers continue to haunt her. Sam Jack stars as a cop protective of Bello’s rape victim and her daughter (Breslin) who witnessed the assault.

This could be a bad lifetime original movie or a fascinating, gritty drama along the lines of Boys Don’t Cry or The Woodsman. We’ll see. Harold Becker is helming and he hasn’t made a movie since Domestic Disturbance in ‘01. At least he seems to be back with another film of substance, though we’ll see how eight years away from film has affected his work.