Seth Rogen To Play Walter Cronkite in David Gordon Green's JFK Assassination Drama NEWSFLASH
Seth Rogen is officially set to play iconic CBS newsman Walter Cronkite in an upcoming JFK assassination drama called Newsflash. The film is being directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) and this might be Rogen's most dramatic movie role to date. I guess it was bound to happen! Most comedians end up trying their hand at a heavy drama.
According to Deadline, "the film takes place on November 22, 1963, the day President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Texas. It was that day that television network news came of age, and Cronkite became the most trusted TV newsman voice of America, even if he wasn’t first to announce the president had died (NBC did that)."
The film was written by Ben Jacoby and the story is said to revolve around Cronkite, "his producer Don Hewitt, their boss Jim Aubrey, and Dan Rather, a young news man who happened to be in Texas and who first distinguished himself as a dogged reporter as he and other journalists frantically dug for truth after reports went over the wire that gunfire rang out in vicinity of the president’s motorcade."
The studio is looking to bring on an all-star cast as they want Mark Ruffalo in the role of Hewitt, and Bryan Cranston in the role of Aubrey. As of right now, Rogen in the only actor who has officially been cast in the movie. It'd certainly be great if Ruffalo and Cranston ended up joining the project! The report goes on to offer additional information on the story, saying:
Aubrey plays the role of antagonist here. Under pressure from William Paley to show profit, Aubrey felt CBS Evening News wasn’t performing, and wasn’t saucy enough. He threatened to remove Cronkite, and possibly scrap the whole evening newscast for programming with greater audience appeal. Faced with a lack of news gathering resources from local news affiliates, and even having to scramble to break into soap opera programming from the newsroom because when the on set lights and cameras took forever to warm up, Hewitt, Cronkite and their team proved their mettle. Their task: to filter all the unverified information and swirling rumors and find the truth that was conveyed to heartbroken Americans glued to their TV sets. Their efforts play out in real time, in a way that makes Newsflash a close cousin to the Steven Spielberg-directed The Post in chronicling a seminal moment in journalism.
This sounds like it's going to be a interesting film, especially if you're into the history surrounding JFK's assassination. Green is currently shooting Halloween, and he's planning to shoot Newsflash in the spring. The studio is hoping to release the film around November 22, which is the 55th anniversary of JFK’s shooting death.