'News Of The World', The Paul Greengrass Western Starring Tom Hanks, Heads To Universal

News of the World, the Western that will reunite Paul Greengrass with Tom Hanks, is moseying on over to a new studio. Fox 2000 was originally set to release the movie, but Disney has shuttered future productions for the label in the wake of the Disney-Fox merger. The movie now belongs to Universal, which also distributed Greengrass' Jason Bourne series, Green Zone, and United 93.Deadline is reporting that News of the World has found a new home at Universal. Hanks' Playtone has a good relationship with Elizabeth Gabler, who runs the Fox 2000 label. Before the Disney-Fox merger was finalized, it was reported that Disney would keep Fox 2000 around. But the day after the deal was done, word came that Fox 2000 was shuttering. While Gabler and the rest of the Fox 2000 team were not laid off, and Disney said they were committed to finishing the Fox 2000 films already in production, there would be no future productions. Which means News of the World, which was set up at Fox 2000 back in 2017, needed a new home. Enter Universal.

Based on the novel by Paulette Jiles, News of the World  is set "in 1870, revolving around a road trip through the untamed West taken by unlikely traveling partners. On the one hand is Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a Texan who travels from town to town to read the news to locals who would otherwise not know what is going on in the world. While Kidd's idea of excitement is spreading the word of the passage of the 15th Amendment that gave voting rights to all men, he gets a jolt when he agrees to escort a 10-year-old white girl to her aunt and uncle in San Antonio after she was rescued from the Kiowa Indian tribe that kidnapped her and killed her family four years earlier. His traveling partner is an ornery youngster who didn't want to be rescued and brought to her relatives. Together they face the inhospitable frontier."

Hanks is playing the role of Kidd. Luke Davies, who wrote Lion, is handling the script. Greengrass has primarily stuck to movies based on true stories lately, so it'll be nice to see him try something new for a change. Greengrass previously directed Hanks in Captain Phillips, which resulted in one of the best performances of Hanks' career, so I'm very interested in seeing the two work together again.