On November 22, 1963, then-president of the United States John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, forever altering the course of American history and, incidentally, American media. The tragedy is woven into tales across the narrative spectrum, from rather silly speculative fiction like The Umbrella Academy and Bubba Ho-Tep, to more grounded worlds like Oppenheimer and The Crown. Assassination sounds to be doing a bit of both, and it’s since locked in the players it needs to fly high.
The Barry Levinson-directed mystery thriller has added the likes of Jessica Chastain, Brendan Fraser, and Bryan Cranston onto a cast that already including Al Pacino. That’s nine Oscar wins between the five of them, and many more nominations; Oscars, of course, being some of the best buzz you can possibly have.
Assassination will focus on one Dorothy Kilgallen (likely played by Chastain), a highly prolific voice in the media at the time of JFK’s assassination. Dorothy, unconvinced by the claim that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, takes it upon herself to track down the true culprit behind the incident, inadvertently teeing herself up against the CIA, Mafia, and FBI in the process.
Of Kilgallen’s story, Levinson stated “Dorothy Kilgallen was the first female crime reporter in America. She was the only woman to ever cover the JFK case. The only reporter to speak with Jack Ruby [the nightclub owner who killed Oswald on live television two days after JFK’s murder]. With back-channel sources to the Warren Commission, she started putting pieces together that no one else did. She died under very suspicious circumstances, but it was never investigated.”
Kilgallen was found dead just under two years after the Kennedy assassination, reportedly from a combination of alcohol and an overdose of anti-depressants.
Producer Jason Sosnoff adds “We love the idea of exploring this topic through Dorothy’s perspective. She was relentless and courageous in pursuing the truth, and this film is as much her story as it is the uncovering of what happened that day in Dallas.”
The film will be a part of the inaugural slate of Concord Studios, a brand new production company launched by producer Pia Patatian (Manodrome), which intends to build up a reputation for “original and high-quality director-driven films for a theatrical audience.”
Alongside Sosnoff, Assassination will be produced by Corey Large (It Follows), and joining Patatian in the executive producing role is John Burham, Bernie Gewissler, and Jordan Nott. And in addition to directing, Levinson also penned the film’s script with David Mamet and Sam Bromell. Production will begin in early 2025 in Boston.
Levinson has won six Oscars over the course of his career, four of them coming from 1988’s Rain Man, and another two from 1991’s Bugsy. Altogether, the filmmaker has been nominated for 34 different Academy Awards.
Chastain’s Academy Award win came from her eponymous performance in 2021’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which also netted her a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Critics’ Choice Award. Fraser, for his part, won his Oscar on the back off 2022’s The Whale, wherein he portrayed the leading character Charlie (which, like Chastain, also won him a Screen Actors Guild Award).
Cranston, meanwhile, was nominated for the Oscar for his portrayal of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in the 2015 film Trumbo, while Pacino’s came from his leading role in 1993’s Scent of a Woman (between Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, Pacino has been Oscar-nominated on nine separate occasions).
Published: Oct 29, 2024 05:57 pm