Since Moneyball saw him A) switching successfully to drama, B) working with Brad Pitt, and C) scoring an Oscar nomination, it’s no surprise to learn that Jonah Hill is planning a combo of at least the first two elements for an upcoming film. He’ll star alongside James Franco in True Story.
The script was adapted from Michael Finkel’s memoir, and will find Hill playing Finkel, who was working for the New York Times magazine back in 2002 when he sniffed out a likely story. The FBI had captured criminal Christian Longo (Franco) after he’d spent a few years on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for killing his family.
So far, so standard crime tale, right? But here’s the twist: Longo had been using Finkel’s identity while on the run. And to add one more wrinkle, the NYT fired Finkel the day after Longo was nabbed after deciding he’d falsified chunks of a recent investigative article. But when Longo declared that Finkel was the only journalist he’d talk to, and that he wanted to prove his innocence, a weird relationship grew with Finkel looking into the mystery and trying to redeem himself as a writer...
So where does Pitt factor into it? Well, he’s producing the movie via his Plan B company, having won the rights to the project back from Paramount. Rupert Goold is directing, and while there’s no financing in place you, you’ve got to figure the combo of Oscar nominees would be enough to make investors ready to jump aboard.