Gary Oldman Will Play Winston Churchill in Joe Wright's DARKEST HOUR

Focus Features just sent over a press release revealing that the company is teaming up with Working Title Films for a new movie called Darkest Hour, which they'll release in 2017. Gary Oldman will star as Winston Churchill in the drama, which is described like this:

Within days of becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill must face one of his most turbulent and defining trials: exploring a negotiated peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the ideals, liberty and freedom of a nation. As the unstoppable Nazi forces roll across Western Europe and the threat of invasion is imminent, and with an unprepared public, a skeptical King, and his own party plotting against him, Churchill must withstand his darkest hour, rally a nation, and attempt to change the course of world history.

People make a big deal about The Academy Awards because it's the closest thing we have to a Super Bowl for movies, but if you're looking for yet another reminder that the Oscars are not the end-all be-all arbiters of quality, think about the fact that Gary Oldman has been delivering towering performances for something like forty years and has never won (he's only been nominated once!). That being said, the fact that Focus Features is behind this movie and that Oldman will be playing a real life figure in a true story (the Academy loves stories like that) means that he may not be far from his first win.

Joining Oldman in the cast are Oscar nominee John Hurt as Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister right before Churchill; Lily James (Cinderella) as Churchill’s personal secretary; Rogue One star Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI; and Oscar nominee Kristin Scott Thomas as Churchill’s wife, Clementine.

Darkest Hour begins filming this fall in the United Kingdom and hits theaters here in the U.S. on November 24, 2017.