Finally back on track with his based-on-truth movie about controversial security guard Richard Jewell, Clint Eastwood is in the process of locking down his leads. And he's gone with people who have recent experience playing real-life folk: Paul Walter Hauser and Sam Rockwell.
Captain Phillips' Billy Ray wrote the screenplay based on a 1997 Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner called The Ballad Of Richard Jewell. The story revolves around the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Jewell, a security guard working at the event, was initially hailed as a hero for finding a suspicious backpack in the sports compound and helping clear bystanders before the bomb contained within it detonated, killing two people on the day and inuring 111 others.
But soon the Atlanta Journal Constitution, working on a law enforcement tip, reported that Jewell fit the profile of a possible bomber and the media descended, camping outside the house where Jewell lived with his mother and spurring an FBI investigation. The story became a national scandal, even though Jewell was cleared three months later. He died in 2007 at the age of 44. Hauser will play Jewell, while Rockwell is negotiating to be his lawyer.
At one point, Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio were in line to star, but they've since departed while maintaining producer credits. Eastwood has moved the film to his usual production haunt, Warner Bros. and with his leads in place, he can crack on with the film.
Hauser was seen in BlacKkKlansman and has a role in Late Night, in UK cinemas now. Rockwell's played several real-world people recently, including Bob Fosse in TV drama Fosse/Verdon. His next film to arrive here is another based-on-truth affair, Best Of Enemies (24 July).
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