James Schamus has begun building his cast for the fact-inspired coming-of-age story College Republicans, reuniting with Indignation star Logan Lerman and signing Asa Butterfield (Sex Education) to portray young versions of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, according to Deadline.
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Penned by Wes Jones (Billions), the film is set in the summer of 1973 and sees Rove partner with his not-to-be-trusted campaign manager Atwater on a road trip through the South in an effort to earn and steal the votes needed to become chairman of the national College Republicans club. The duo will form uneasy alliances with future Republican icons including Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Jeff Sessions, but will meet their match in a beautiful young Republican operative who may bring their journey to a career-ending halt.
Inspired by the real people and political organization at the center of the story, Jones crafted the film on lots of meticulous research to properly tell the darkly comedic origin story of the modern GOP and the minds who would one day reshape the American political landscape.
In addition to Lerman’s Atwater and Butterfield’s Rove, the film is set to feature Kristine Froseth (Looking for Alaska) as Kate King, the young Republican operative threatening their dreams who is a composite character of real people in the two’s past.
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The film is set to be produced by Likely Story’s Anthony Bregman and Peter Cron, The Black List’s Franklin Leonard and Symbolic Exchange’s Schamus, while Jones and Ken Friemann are attached as executive producers on the project. The crew is eying a production start date in spring or summer of 2021 while financing and distribution deals are developed in the meantime.
(Photo Credits: Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage and Mike Marsland/WireImage)
