Paramount has come aboard to distribute ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7,’ with two more actors cast in the ensemble. Frank Langella will play US District Court Judge Julius Hoffman, who presided over the trial, while Mark Rylance will portray William Kunstler, the lawyer who defended the civil rights activists.
Langella is currently in the Showtime series ‘Kidding,’ and was recently in FX’s ‘The Americans.’ For film, he was in George Clooney’s ‘ Good Night, and Good Luck.,’ Ron Howard’s ‘Frost/Nixon,’ and Matt Ross’ ‘Captain Fantastic.’ The second season of ‘Kidding’ will premiere November 3rd.
Rylance has been collaborating frequently with director Steven Spielberg as of late, with ‘Bridge of Spies,’ ‘The BFG,’ and ‘Ready Player One.’ His performance in ‘Bridge of Spies’ got him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other credits include Roland Emmerich’s ‘Anonymous,’ Pierre Morel’s ‘The Gunman,’ and Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk.’
Moreover, the rest of the cast and their roles:
- Sacha Baron Cohen (‘Alice Through the Looking Glass,’ ‘Who is America?’) as Abbie Hoffman
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt (‘Snowden,’ ‘Comrade Detective’) as Richard Schultz
- Jonathan Majors (‘White Boy Rick,’ ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’) as Bobby Seale
- Eddie Redmayne (‘The Danish Girl,’ ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’) as Tom Hayden
- Seth Rogen (‘Long Shot,’ ‘The Lion King’) as Jerry Rubin
- Alex Sharp (‘How to Talk to Girls at Parties,’ ‘The Hustle’) as Rennie Davis
Meanwhile, Aaron Sorkin not only wrote the screenplay, but he will also direct the movie. He is most famous for writing NBC’s ‘The West Wing,’ David Fincher’s ‘The Social Network,’ and Danny Boyle’s ‘Steve Jobs.’ His recent feature film outing was his directorial debut ‘Molly’s Game’ from 2017.
Sorkin’s previous statement about this passion project:
“I’m thrilled to be making a movie about one of one of the craziest, funniest, most intense, most tragic and most triumphant trials in American history. C-7 may take place in the late ’60’s, but there’s no better time to tell this story than today.”
Further, filming will now begin this October, in Chicago and Toronto, Canada.
However, there is currently no release date yet.
Source: Deadline