Filmmaker James Gray has set a star-studded cast for his feature, Armageddon Time, with actors Oscar Isaac, Anne Hathaway, Robert De Niro coming aboard.

The film is being described as a coming-of-age tale based on Gray's own childhood memories of growing up in Queens, New York in the mid-1980s, and explores friendship and loyalty against the backdrop of an America poised to elect Ronald Reagan as president.

It recounts Gray's upbringing in the New York borough of Queens as a student at Kew-Forest, a private school that counts Donald Trump and Hank Azaria among its alumni.

Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett was the first one to come aboard the project when it was announced in May.

The movie will also feature veteran actor Donald Sutherland, who had also starred in Gray's previous directorial, Ad Astra.

Gray will direct from his own original screenplay. The project will be produced by'Rodrigo Teixeira'through his RT Features. Lourenco Sant'Anna'and'Rodrigo Gutierrez'will serve as executive producers.

Gray said in an interview that he wants the film "to be political and historic" but filled with "love and warmth."

"What happened with me, very simply, I got in big trouble when I was around 11, though the boys are 12 in the movie, and the story is about my movement from the public education that I got into private school and a world of privilege. This film is about what that meant for me and how lucky I was, and how unlucky my friend was and about what that break meant for me and what it meant for him," the filmmaker said.