Zach Braff has been added to the cast of 'The Comeback Trail'.

Zach Braff

Zach Braff

The 44-year-old actor - who is best known for his role as J. D. on medical comedy-drama TV series 'Scrubs' - is set to star in George Gallo's remake of the 1980s comedy which was originally helmed by Harry Hurwitz.

The reboot will see Robert De Niro play film producer Max Barber who owes a serious debt to an organised crime boss (Morgan Freeman) with Braff portraying his producing partner.

Desperate to find a way to repay the gangster, the pair come up with a plan to cast a suicidal, washed-up cowboy movie star called Duke Montana (Tommy Lee Jones,) in a terribly written new Western.

The producers aim is to throw Duke into dangerous situations on set in hopes that he will die and they will collect the insurance money, however, he somehow rises to the occasion and puts in the performance on his career.

Gallo worked with Josh Posner to write the adaptation of Harry Hurwitz's 1982 original, which features Chuck McCann as producer Enrico Kodac, Robert Staats as his partner E. Eddie Eastman and Buster Crabbe in his final on-screen role as Duke Montana.

Producers are Steven Tyler Sahlein, March On Productions' Richard Salvatore and David Ornston, along with Joy Sirott Hurwitz and Julie Lott Gallo.

The film is being financed and executive produced by Empire Media Partners' Justin Calvillo and John DeMarco, Storyboard Media's Philip Kim, Patrick Hibler and Elisabeth Costa de Beauregard, along with Ben Ruedinger and Joerg Fischer.

Filming will begin this June in New Mexico.

'The Comeback Trail' will reunite him with Freeman, 81, after the pair worked together on a 2017 remake of the 1979 film 'Going in Style'.

The heist comedy film was directed by Zach Braff and stars Freeman, Michael Caine, Alan Arkin, Joey King, Matt Dillon, Christopher Lloyd, Ann-Margret, John Ortiz and Siobhan Fallon Hogan.

It follows a trio of retirees who plan to rob a bank after their pensions are cancelled.