Peter Berg’s Patriots Day earned solid reviews when it hit theaters last year, but the way that movie invented a single character who appeared at all of the major turning points of the 2013 Boston bombing struck me as disingenuous.
Now, director David Gordon Green is here with Stronger, a film that tells the true story of one of the bombing’s survivors, Jeff Bauman, played here by Jake Gyllenhaal. To me, this looks like a much better way of approaching the topic, and it looks like an emotional, inspiring story about overcoming adversity and personifying the term “Boston Strong.” Check out the first Stronger trailer below.
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Posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2014 by Angie Han
Boston Strong has found a director and lost a star. First, the positive news: Safe House director Daniel Espinosa has entered talks to helm the 20th Century Fox drama, which follows the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013.
And now, the bad news: Casey Affleck has just dropped out of the lead role, after attaching himself last month. Hit the jump for the Boston Strong Daniel Espinosa and Casey Affleck updates.
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Posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2014 by Angie Han
Massachusetts native Casey Affleck has just signed on to chronicle one of the saddest moments in his state’s recent history. He’s set to star in and produce Boston Strong, about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
The Fighter scribes Eric Johnson and Paul Tamasy wrote the script, based on the upcoming book by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge. Get more details on the Casey Affleck Boston Marathon bombing movie after the jump.
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Briefly: The biggest story of the spring in the US was the bombing that took place on Patriot’s Day at the Boston Marathon, which led to a city-wide manhunt for two suspects who turned out to be brothers. That police effort culminated in a protracted stand-off and gun battle that saw one bomber killed (no thanks to his brother) and the other in custody, albeit in particularly bad shape.
The event dominated news in the US, and is the subject of a forthcoming book by Casey Sherman, and Dave Wedge of the Boston Herald. The book, Boston Strong, examines both the reaction to the bombing in Boston and the manhunt that ensued only days later. Now Deadline says The Fighter screenwriters Eric Johnson and Paul Tamasy have picked up the rights to the book, which won’t be published until next year.
(The two, with producer Dorothy Aufiero, are adapting another Casey Sherman book, The Finest Hours. Disney has that one, with Robert Schwentke attached to direct.)
We don’t know what direction the screen version of Boston Strong may take. While there were a few dominant personalities that emerged throughout the week, a primary characteristic of the manhunt was the way that Boston responded as one unified force, cooperating en masse to find the bombers. It’s not the easiest adaptation; we’ll update when details become available — likely in several months.
