Given that Columbia Pictures-- a.k.a. Sony-- was behind the successful and Oscar-lauded Moneyball, it makes sense that they would want to continue being in business with director Bennett Miller. So it's not especially surprising to learn that Sony has picked up the distribution rights to Miller's next film, Foxcatcher, which is currently in production with a major-league cast on board.
Steve Carell, Channing Tatum-- who has been making bank for Sony this year thanks to 21 Jump Street-- Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave and Anthony Michael Hall make up the cast of the film, which a script from Dan Fogelman based on some pretty incredible true events. Carell will play John DuPont, heir to the DuPont family fortune who invested heavily in American amateur athletics, including sponsoring the USA Wrestling team as "Team Foxcatcher." He also allowed wrestler Dave Schultz to stay in his home, an arrangement that turned deadly when DuPont shot Schultz dead in his driveway, witnessed by two people. Tatum, as you might imagine from his Magic Mike build, is playing Schultz.
It's not always easy to turn fascinating true stories into fascinating movies, but Miller managed to do just that with both Capote-- which took the actions of the book In Cold Blood but wove a narrative around them-- and Moneyball, based on a book about the math side of baseball. He's quickly proving himself as one of the most promising directing talents working, and Foxcatcher ought to offer him plenty more challenges-- and hopefully the rest of us the chance to see this fascinating, bizarre true story unfold in a movie as strong as what Miller has previously done.
