James Hetfield of Metallica has apparently landed a part in an upcoming Western based upon the 2013 novel, The Thickett. 

The novel is about Jack Parker, who went thru a momentous amount of tragedy in his life, one of those being a group of bank robbers that murder his grandfather and kidnap his sister. Jack hires the only help he can get, a bounty hunter named Shorty, who is a little person.

The big screen adaptation will star Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, Elf) as Shorty and Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers, Cape Fear)  as the villain of Cut Throat Bill.

This is said to be a “passion project” for Dinklage who has been linked to it since 2014 and started with pre-production of the film in 2020, but of course everything was brought to a screeching halt because of the pandemic.

This isn’t James’ first venture into the world of acting. Aside from voicing characters on Dave the Barbarian, Metalocalypse, American Dad!, The Simpsons and Skylanders Academy, he also played Officer Bob Hayward in the Netflix biopic about Ted Bundy in 2019. Hayward was the first law enforcement officer to arrest Bundy. Check out a clip here

So what roll is James Hetfield playing? That apparently has yet to be revealed. Filming has begun in Calgary with an alleged release date before the end of the year and will be released on Tubi.