Though having top-class filmmaking talent attached is no guarantee of a project's actual quality, the idea of Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep teaming up for a movie surely has people preparing Oscars. The trio will work on true-life publishers-vs-politicians drama The Post.
Producer Amy Pascal nabbed Liz Hannah's script last year and has been lining up Spielberg, Hanks and Streep, locking down deals to secure their services. If it all comes together, Hanks will play real-life Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee (as played by Jason Robards in All The President's Men, which chronicled a linked case), with Streep as the paper's publisher Kay Graham.
With Fox and Amblin joining forces to fund the drama, the story will follow the role the paper played in exposing the Pentagon Papers, unreported facts about a secret aim to escalate the Vietnam War. Fighting the government (including the Nixon administration) for the right to report on the contents of the studies in the papers, the Post won a legal challenge in the Supreme Court. So, just a little bit topical given today's political climate across the pond...
This would mark the fifth pairing of Hanks and the director, and Streep has form with him too, having voiced the Blue Mecha fairy in A.I. More recently, she recorded the narration for Five Came Back, the documentary about filmmakers sent to make propaganda movies during World War II that Spielberg is executive producing and contributing to.