Last year, we learned that Benedict Cumberbatch and Jake Gyllenhaal were in talks to star in true-life drama The Current War. While The Hollywood Reporter's update on the movie doesn't mention Gyllenhaal, it seems that someone he has worked with recently is up for a role instead: Michael Shannon is in negotiations.
Michael Mitnick’s script has Me And Earl And The Dying Girl’s Alfonso Gomez-Rejon on board to direct now his work on Collateral Beauty is complete.
The Current War, set in the late 1880s, follows the real-life public clash between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse as to who was going to decide the future of the electricity industry. Edison favoured direct current, while Westinghouse and several other companies preferred to push alternating current. It was, to put it bluntly, an actual power struggle.
Shannon has several movies headed towards us, including Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals (which stars Gyllenhaal) out on 4 November, and his latest gig for regular collaborator Jeff Nichols, Loving, arriving 3 February next year.