Having tracked down the two leads for his latest, now known simply as Richard Jewell, Clint Eastwood is building the cast for the true-life tale around them. Olivia Wilde and Jon Hamm are the newest recruits.
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. Paul Walter Hauser will play Jewell, while Sam Rockwell is negotiating to be his lawyer.
Wilde is playing reporter Kathy Scruggs, who covered the event as it unfolded, while Hamm is on as an FBI agent investigating the attack and its aftermath. Kathy Bates has also locked down a deal to play Jewell's mother, Bobi.
Eastwood is gearing up to shoot the film this year, and Warner Bros. is backing it. Wilde, who recently released her directorial debut Booksmart, is a producer on TV series Best Seller. Hamm, on TV screens in Good Omens, has Lucy In The Sky and Top Gun: Maverick on the way.
Keep up to date with all the latest movie news, click here to subscribe to Empire on Great Magazines and have the latest issue delivered to your door every month.