Clint Eastwood's 'Richard Jewell' Gets Fast-Tracked For Awards Season Release

Clint Eastwood is crashing awards season again. A mere 6 months after the Oscar-winning director started rolling on his new feature film based on the incredible true story of the security guard wrongly accused of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games bombing, Warner Bros. is setting the Richard Jewell release date for this December — just in time for an awards-season run.Deadline reports that Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell is getting fast-tracked for an awards season release. Merely six months after the drama starring Paul Walter Hauser (I, Tonya) started production, Warner Bros. has set Richard Jewell to be released in theaters nationwide on December 13, 2019. The December release is in the height of awards season, when studios release films with an intent to campaign for Oscar nominations.

Production on the biopic began just this June, giving Eastwood only six months to finish the film by the time its release date rolls round. It's certainly a high turnover, but Warner Bros. seems intent on bringing Eastwood back to the awards season after last year's box office monster The Mule, which he starred and directed in, failed to gain awards traction.

Richard Jewell, which has apparently dropped "The Ballad of" from the beginning of its title, stars Hauser as Jewell, the security guard whose "life was turned upside down after law enforcement leaked to a reporter that he was a possible suspect in the the 1996 Atlanta Olympics' Olympic Park bombing," according to Deadline. The film adapts the  Vanity Fair story by Marie Brenner, which tells the true story of the security guard who quickly went from hero to villain in the eyes of the public after the FBI and the media named him the prime suspect. Jewell's name was cleared 88 days later, but his reputation never recovered.Sam Rockwell is set to play Jewell's lawyer, while Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, and Olivia Wilde also star.

The film, which is penned by Billy Ray, has been in development for years, and at one point was set to reunite The Wolf of Wall Street's Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in the roles played by Rockwell and Hauser, respectively. Fox was originally set to distribute, but after the Disney-Fox deal, the film has moved to Warner Bros. But just as quickly as the film came together — Eastwood boarded the project this March — it is now coming to theaters. And with an all-star cast and Eastwood leading the fray, Richard Jewell does indeed sound like perfect awards fodder.

Richard Jewell hits theaters on December 13, 2019.