Shia Laboeuf has joined Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis.” This casting news is quite surprising given that Laboeuf has been persona non grata in Tinseltown for over a year now.

Laboeuf had taken some time off from acting after being criminally charged for misdemeanor battery and petty theft in September 2020. LaBeouf was then sued, in December of that year, by his ex-girlfriend Tahliah Debrett Barnett for sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress.

LaBeouf is joining a “Megalopolis” cast that includes Adam Driver, Forest Whittaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, and Laurence Fishburne. The production is set to begin in November and run through March 2023.

Coppola is self-funding the epic, a passion project more than three decades in the making. The cost is said to be around $120 million.