6 December, 2007
By Jeremy Kay in Los Angeles Source: Variety.com
The partners plan a late spring 2008 release on the film, which recounts Trumbo’s eventful life through his letters and is based on his son Christopher’s stage play.
Trumbo earned his first Oscar nomination in 1941 for Kitty Foyle: The Natural History Of A Woman and became a passionate advocate of free speech after he was blacklisted by Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee.
He wrote Academy Award winning screenplays for Roman Holiday in 1954 and The Brave One in 1957 under pseudonym and was eventually reinstated to the Writers Guild in 1960. Trumbo’s writing credits include Spartacus and Exodus.
The film-makers enlisted a constellation of Hollywood stars such as Liam Neeson, Joan Allen and Michael Douglas to read Trumbo’s letters.
Safehouse’s Will Battersby and Tory Tunnell and Filbert Steps’ Alan Klingenstein and David Viola produced and Jim Kohlberg served as executive producer.
Samuel Goldywn Films’ vice president of acquisitions Peter Goldwyn and Red Envelope Entertainment chief Liesl Copland negotiated the deal with Andrew Hurwitz of Schreck Rose Dapello Adams & Hurwitz and WMI.
