The Hollywood Reporter has announced that the upcoming Richard Jewell biopic directed and produced by Clint Eastwood (The Mule), which has been in the works for five years, is changing studios from Fox to Warner Bros, the legendary director’s longtime home.
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Based on Marie Brenner’s 1997 Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell,” the film will tell the true story of the innocent security guard who helped save lives during the 1996 Olympic bombing in Atlanta who was later accused of plotting the attack. Eric Robert Rudolph pled guilty to the crime, along with several other bombings, in 2005.
The project has been in development for many years with Jonah Hill previously attached to play Jewell. Hill’s The Wolf of Wall Street cohort Leonardo DiCaprio previously attached to play the lawyer who aided him during the media firestorm that painted him as a terrorist. Neither actor remains attached to the film as a star, but remain attached as producers.
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Following Disney’s acquisition of Fox, the studio has been clearing a lot of upcoming films from its slates that it doesn’t deem primed for box office smashing, but rather than cancel the Jewell project, the House of Mouse began discussions with Warner Bros. to send the film their way. Warner Bros. has been almost the exclusive home to Eastwood’s filmography as both an actor and a director.
The film will be produced by DiCaprio, Hill, Jennifer Davisson Killoran, and Kevin Misher, with Eastwood hoping to begin shooting this summer from the script written by.
