‘News Of The World’, The Paul Greengrass Western Starring Tom Hanks, Heads To Universal
By Chris Evangelista/April 10, 2019 5:30 pm EST
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.
