Parts & Labor’s Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy and producers Robert Scarff and Zach Sebastian will partner on the project, based on adventurer Jack Black’s 1926 autobiography.

Robinson Devor will direct from a screenplay he adapted with Pitt, Barry Gifford and Charles Mudede and principal photography is set to commence in Seattle in late April.

You Can’t Win chronicles the journey of a man from childhood through an adult life spent mostly on the road, freight-hopping across the western United States and Canada. 

It focuses on the little-known story of the Yegg Brotherhood, a loose alliance of hobos, tramps, and travelling criminals riding the rails in turn-of-the-century America.  

Devor made his feature film directorial debut with The Woman Chaser and followed that up with Sundance 2005 entry Police Beat and the Sundance 2007 documentary Zoo.

Parts & Labor produced Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy as well as Cold Weather and Beginners. The company is producing Dirty Whiteboy to star Michael K Williams as the late rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard.