New film role : The Frontrunner (Gary Hart political drama)

[jo]

Focus of the movie, per EW --

ew.com/movies/2017/06/27/hugh-jackman-gary-hart-jason-reitman-political-drama-frontrunner/

Did Gary Hart waste his shot at the presidency — or did America waste its chance of electing a wise but flawed man?


This is the question at the center of The Frontrunner, a new drama from director Jason Reitman that will star Hugh Jackman as former presidential candidate Gary Hart — the Democratic frontrunner in 1987 before news of an extramarital affair demolished his candidacy … and potentially denied the country of a leader known for his compassion, intellect, and charisma.

Hart foresaw the rising threat of Mideast terrorism and the diminishing of the Cold War, but he was blindsided by the incursion of tabloid TV journalism in the previously staid political media, which had typically looked the other way when it came to politicians’ personal lives.

The film is based on the book All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid by Matt Bai, who co-wrote the script with the Up in the Air and Young Adult filmmaker, and former Hillary Clinton spokesman Jay Carson, who is also a producer on House of Cards (and one of the inspirations for Ryan Gosling’s character in the 2011 political thriller Ides of March, based on a play by House of Cards creator Beau Willimon.) Jackman’s casting was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.Reitman tells EW the movie will explore the impact Hart’s candidacy “had on the evolving relationship between politics and the media.”

“Like anyone, I look at the political landscape right now and just wonder how we got here. There isn’t any one answer, but Matt Bai’s book about the Hart candidacy raised interesting questions and offered a thread I wanted to pull,” Reitman says.



Hart was a Colorado senator who had a strong lead in the polls and an easy way with everyday voters when news reports broke about his affair with model Donna Rice. A notorious photo of the two of them at a yacht party, with her sitting on his lap and him wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Monkey Business” (which was the name of the boat), annihilated any talk of policy or vision for the country.

In his 1987 speech announcing the end of his candidacy, Hart foresaw a time when good politicians who were imperfect declined to run, and awful people who were good at creating skepticism and activating the worst in people rose to the fore.“We’re all going to have to seriously question the system for selecting our national leaders, for it reduces the press of this nation to hunters and Presidential candidates to being hunted,” Hart said. “Too much of it is just a mockery, and if it continues to destroy people’s integrity and honor, then that system will eventually destroy itself.”

Will the movie which focuses on national politics in America appeal to other countries?

We might be surprised

[jo]

Still no announcements of other key casting roles -- but look at how fast the crewing up activities for the creatives and for the logistics/admin aspects has gone!

www.imdb.com/title/tt7074886/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

I wonder if Hugh did have chemistry tests with key casts ( such as the roles of Gary Hart's wife and his mistress) before he went on his extensive travel activities? He did have a short break in LA when he did some promotional YouTube recordings for SHOWMAN. Maybe there was time for some aspects of pre-production for THE FRONTRUNNER?

Again, Jason Reitman seems to have organized his key team creatives fast -- many came from his successful JUNO film project.

Also, there were some location details shared on IMDB ( Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia). The last time he was there was when he filmed Prisoners in Georgia. Georgia seems to be attracting a lot of filming activities -- must be the incentives package?

I wonder if some aspects of filming originally announced for Vancouver will still happen?


Btw, has anyone read the book on which the screenplay will be based? The book's author is co-writing the screenplay/script.

Jo

[jo]

From Amazon.com --

This is the book released in 2015 on which THE FRONTRUNNER will be based --

An NPR Best Book of the Year

In May 1987, Colorado Senator Gary Hart—a dashing, reform-minded Democrat—seemed a lock for the party’s presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. Then, in one tumultuous week, rumors of marital infidelity and a newspaper’s stakeout of Hart’s home resulted in a media frenzy the likes of which had never been seen before.
 
Through the spellbindingly reported story of the Senator’s fall from grace, Matt Bai, Yahoo News columnist and former chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, shows the Hart affair to be far more than one man’s tragedy: rather, it marked a crucial turning point in the ethos of political media, and the new norms of life in the public eye. All the Truth Is Out is a tour de force portrait of the American way of politics at the highest level, one that changes our understanding of how we elect our presidents and how the bedrock of American values has shifted under our feet.

Btw, there has been no official confirmation from Hugh Jackman that he has accepted this role. His name is listed on IMDB for the role of Gary Hart, though. It is normal though for a movie to get a greenlight and start pre-production only if key elements are in place ( such as main casting and key creatives).

He has never taken a role of this nature, so it will be a challenging aspect to his acting versatility if he does accept the role.


Jo

[jo]

It looks like it will be a short shoot for THE FRONTRUNNER in Georgia ( Atlanta/Savannah)--

stompandstammer.com/call-sheet/frontrunner-en-route-georgia/

Shooting is expected to take place September 13th through October 27th,

Georgia seems to be one of the favorite filming locations (tax breaks?). Wasn't PRISONERS filmed there?

IMDB info indicates that they seem to be fully crewed up. But there is no further info on the rest of the casting. Technically speaking, Hugh or his representatives have not publicly confirmed his casting.

www.imdb.com/title/tt7074886/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

[jo]

Interesting reader feedback from the Variety article RE the casting of Hugh Jackman in the role of Gary Hart.

variety.com/2017/film/news/hugh-jackman-gary-hart-the-frontrunner-1202479910/#article-comments

This one in particular --

Reply
Paul Galvin says:
June 28, 2017 at 4:05 am

Two reporters recently admitted they “allowed a myth to grow” (fake news?) in the midst of the May 1987 media feeding frenzy that they helped create and that ended the presidential candidacy of frontrunner Gary Hart only 3 weeks after his announcement.

In his book, All The Truth is Out (2014), Matt Bai chronicles the sudden change in the unwritten rules of journalism that protected similarly human (flawed?) candidates who became some of our nation’s greatest presidents. But Hart was stopped … twice.

Matt Bai, former chief political reporter of The New York Times magazine, cites May 1987, as “the critical turning point in the devolution of American political media,” as Hart was blamed for challenging the media to “follow” him around and therefore “self-destructed.”

The Times reporter who wrote the original story recently admitted he did not see it as a challenge but more as a natural reaction to being questioned about fake news quotes but regrets that he did not speak up or push back against the media storm at the time.

The other reporter who inserted the quote in his stake-out story also recently admitted “that had really been the beginning of the myth.” But he continued to keep the misleading quote on his employer’s journalism & ethics website for another year until Bai’s book.

All The Truth is NOT Out, as two major stories remain buried: (1) Heroic demonstration by 80+ pro-Hart students mostly from BU, Harvard, MIT, calling for Hart’s re-entry at New Hampshire’s Democratic state convention, published only by Manchester Union Leader; and, (2) Hart again topped all major polls until January 20, 1988, when the stake-out reporter wrote a proven fake news headline: Hart’s campaigns secretly subsidized.

Ironically, if a certain student at Tufts University was aware of the 1987 media censorship of fellow students across the Charles, he also may have decided not to devote himself to the otherwise noble profession of journalism; that brave student is reporter Matt Bai.

PS:

Matt Bai, Jay Carson, and Reitman wrote the screenplay, based on Bai’s book “All the Truth Is Out,” which chronicles Hart’s rise and dramatic fall.

It looks like the film will be both a political and a journalistic drama!

Director Reitman was quoted by EW, thus --

Reitman tells EW the movie will explore the impact Hart’s candidacy “had on the evolving relationship between politics and the media.”

This is going to be a completely different role and acting challenge for Hugh Jackman! Can't wait!


Jo

[njr]

Aug 16, 2017 7:31:24 GMT -5 jo said:

It looks like it will be a short shoot for THE FRONTRUNNER in Georgia ( Atlanta/Savannah)--

stompandstammer.com/call-sheet/frontrunner-en-route-georgia/

Shooting is expected to take place September 13th through October 27th,

Georgia seems to be one of the favorite filming locations (tax breaks?). Wasn't PRISONERS filmed there?

IMDB info indicates that they seem to be fully crewed up. But there is no further info on the rest of the casting. Technically speaking, Hugh or his representatives have not publicly confirmed his casting.

www.imdb.com/title/tt7074886/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

Yes, cheaper to film here in Georgia. And, yes, Prisoners was filmed here.

Nancy

[hughmanity]

www.claimfame.com/casting-call/hugh-jackmans-new-drama-frontrunner-casting-university-types/

[carouselkathy]

Gary Hart's indiscretions were mild compared to other presidents. The big difference was that his ended up on a magazine cover. Now, candidates can do and say anything in an inappropriate manner without alienating voters. This could be a very interesting film in today's political climate. We would have a very well-liked actor playing a popular Senator who was caught cheating. Would that even be a political issue today? If Hart had been elected, would there have been an Iraq War? Would Isis exist? If JFK had completed his second term, would we have been out of Vietnam sooner? The person in the oval office can change the direction of history. Lots of "ifs". If this film is done well, it could spark a lot of conversation.

[mamaleh]

We took an anniversary trip to Savannah a couple of weeks ago. Very humid but such a lovely city, great for walking through all those squares bursting with greenery and lots of bits of history.

I'm thinking by the time HJ shoots THE FRONTRUNNER, it should be more comfortably cool. Maybe they'll even go to nearby Tybee Island for Hart's boat scenes. (Great beach, by the way.)

Ellen

[carouselkathy]

I was in Savannah visiting friends in the 1970's. Beautiful city! The weather was a bit hot for this California kid (me), but it was lovely!

[jo]

twool9.com/castingcall-hugh-jackmans-the-front-runner-casting-call-for-recurring-roles-twool9/

Project Casting

Project Casting – Casting Calls, Acting Auditions, Movie & TV News for Free

The Front Runner starring Hugh Jackman is now casting recurring roles in Atlanta, Georgia. Casting directors are looking for talent to work on the new talent to work on the new Hugh Jackman movie The Front Runner. Filming will shoot from September 18th through November 8th. Auditions will take place on Wednesday, August 30th. Producers are seeking the […]
Hugh Jackman’s ‘The Front Runner’ Casting Call for Recurring Roles

Project Casting

Click Here for More info

Casting details found here --

www.projectcasting.com/casting-calls-acting-auditions/hugh-jackmans-front-runner-casting-call-recurring-roles

[jo]

Who will play Donna Rice?

And Mrs. Gary Hart?


And if there will be some journalistic drama, who will be cast in the roles?


Jo

[jo]

Very interesting analysis on the book from which the movie would be based...and why journalists shied away from it --

www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/media-doesnt-want-remember-gary-hart

Why the Media Doesn’t Want to Remember Gary Hart

By Ken Auletta
January 27, 2015

Photograph by Sonny Figueroa / The New York Times via Redux

Expectations were high this past fall for Matt Bai’s book “All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid.” Bai is a former Times political reporter and a current national political columnist for Yahoo, and his book zeroed in on a turning point in American political journalism, now largely forgotten: the way the press pursued Gary Hart, the leading Democratic candidate for President in the 1988 campaign, about his sex life. Reporters staked out his home to learn if he was sleeping with Donna Rice, a model; they asked whether he had ever committed adultery; and they investigated that very question. This process, Bai claimed, turned reporters into character cops, fundamentally changing the way the press covered campaigns. Instead of probing the substance of Hart’s positions, he said, reporters chased him from the race. Much of the political press turned into a supermarket tabloid.


“It’s a story,” Bai writes near the start of his book, “of the moment when the worlds of public service and tabloid entertainment, which had been gradually orbiting closer to one another, finally collided, and of the man who found himself improbably trapped in that collision, and of the way that moment reverberated through the years.”


Bai’s book is brisk and compelling. It was featured on the cover of the Times magazine last fall. Reviews, especially those composed by academics, were positive. He appeared on “The Daily Show” and “Charlie Rose.” Amazon editors chose it as one of the best books of the year. His publisher, Knopf, ordered a first printing of twenty-five thousand copies. Yet sales fizzled, totalling just ten thousand, according to a knowledgeable publishing source. Journalists, it seems, did not want to reflect on the way their profession had changed, and the public didn’t seem so interested either in the moral questions Bai raised. A publishing executive who is a fan of Bai’s book asked me, “Do you really think the press will warm to a book that criticizes the press?”


Members of the media have often justified their investigations into Hart by noting that the candidate invited them to snoop. “Follow me around,” Hart once said. “I don’t care. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.” But, as Bai shows, that well-known quote was taken out of context. Furthermore, it did not appear until after the Miami Herald, which published the first stories about Donna Rice, had staked out his D.C. home and cornered him in an alley.


The book paints a vivid picture of a feral pack of reporters out to beat the Herald’s scoop. It particularly notes the moment, a short while after the Miami Herald story appeared, that Paul Taylor, a respected reporter from the Washington Post, asked Hart at a crowded New Hampshire press conference, “Have you ever committed adultery?”

Bai described the reaction to this query. “To Hart and his aides and to the older reporters in the room who would always remember it as a watershed moment, Taylor might as well have asked him to disrobe right there and submit to a cavity search,” he wrote. “No reporter had ever asked a presidential candidate that kind of personal, sexual, broad question.”

While Bai is tough on Taylor and the principal political reporter for the Miami Herald, Tom Fiedler, he also scrupulously offers their defense, and he provides some context for why the press had legitimate concerns about Hart’s character: Nixon had lied about Watergate, and Lyndon Johnson had lied about Vietnam. But Bai also shows how, after Watergate, reportorial skepticism curdled into cynicism, and how some journalists became as ambitious as the candidates, hoping to become the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein. Bai expresses admiration for Hart’s efforts to publicly question the press’s behavior, and he defends a candidate’s right to demand a zone of privacy.


Serious questions have been raised about Bai’s book. Thomas E. Patterson, the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard’s Kennedy School, wrote in an e-mail, “As far as its thesis, I both agree and disagree.” The Hart campaign was, Patterson said, a watershed, and it did set up the press’s coverage of Bill Clinton. But he also notes that tough personal questions, such as those about Geraldine Ferraro’s tax returns, had been asked before the Hart campaign. He added, “I think Matt is right in looking at the Hart case as definitive in terms of signalling that candidates’ private lives are fair game.”


Tom Rosenstiel, who inspected the media’s coverage of the Hart campaign for the Los Angeles Times, and who today serves as the executive director of the nonprofit American Press Institute, told me that he believes Bai minimizes the legitimate questions reporters had about Hart. As a candidate, Rosenstiel said, Hart was “pious,” presenting himself as someone “who wanted to bring virtue to public life”; yet journalists worried about his “reckless” behavior and the “blind spots” in his character. What animated reporters who covered Hart, Rosenstiel said, “had less to do with Hart’s fidelity to his wife than with, ‘You say you’re this kind of person, yet you conduct yourself differently.’ ”


Sometimes there are good reasons to report on the sex lives of politicians. The tabloid National Enquirer revealed much about John Edwards’s character, in 2008, when it exposed his adulterous affair, as well as his blatant lies about paternity, as his wife died of cancer. While there were egregious excesses in the press coverage of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, there’s no way reporters could ignore that the President of the United States had had an affair with a White House intern and publicly lied about it. Or that the former Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller had suffered a fatal heart attack, in 1979, while having sex with a woman who was not his wife, or that his staff had at first induced reporters to file false stories about the incident.


Perhaps Hart would have imploded anyway. “There were lots of things about Hart that may have made him a problematic candidate,” Rosenstiel said. The candidate was as intellectually sharp as Bill Clinton, and his innovative ideas have had lasting impact. But a President is in our living rooms daily, and “likeability” matters. Hart’s intensity, aloofness, and admirable sense of privacy won respect, not warmth, Rosenstiel said. Reporters were right to note that Hart was a loner, and that few of his colleagues in the Senate supported him for President. This posed the same question for Hart as it does today for Obama or for Elizabeth Warren: choosing a President involves more than just going through an ideological checklist. Whether candidates also have the political and executive skills—and the patience—to manage a giant enterprise and build a consensus to advance their agendas is equally important.



Bai’s superb book provokes many questions, and I gulped it down in a single sitting. Perhaps the reason that the book didn’t sell, a well-placed publishing executive told me, is because Hart is ancient history, and books on the press are perceived by readers as inside baseball. But the other reason, it seems to me, is that thin-skinned journalists have less interest in reading, and writing, about their own mistakes.


Bai had extensive access to Hart, and as I neared the end of the book I wondered, will he ask Hart the question of whether he committed adultery? I’ve heard more than a few reporters lambast Bai for writing an entire book without asking Hart whether he had sex with Rice. But those who ask that question miss the lesson that Bai meant to impart. The most poignant and powerful moment in the book comes near the end, when Bai explains why he chose not to ask. To ask would have contradicted everything he wrote in two hundred and forty-six pages. After two years of reporting, he had decided that, while Hart was flawed, the candidate’s refusal to answer prurient questions showed true strength of character.

The role and the surrounding circumstances, with both a slant towards public perception and how journalists played a role in the storyline, will be a very different and serious challenge for Hugh Jackman as an actor.

"Hart’s intensity, aloofness, and admirable sense of privacy won respect, not warmth, Rosenstiel said. Reporters were right to note that Hart was a loner, and that few of his colleagues in the Senate supported him for President."

Hugh Jackman projects a different kind of personality in real life...but as he has proven in LOGAN and PRISONERS, he can portray characters that are very different from how he is perceived as a person. Hugh has also portrayed an enigma of a man in THE RIVER and a blustery alpha male in A STEADY RAIN ... It is also true that his ebullient portrayal of Barnum ( from what we saw in the trailer) is another side to his acting persona!

Great challenge but I am looking very much forward to it.


Jo

[jo]

This site suggests that the earlier filming schedule may transpire for THE FRONTRUNNER --

omegaunderground.com/2017/08/23/hugh-jackmans-front-runner-shoots-september-october-atlanta/

Hugh Jackman’s ‘The Front Runner’ Shoots September-October In Atlanta

by Christopher Marc
The Front Runner
55 mins ago



Omega Underground has learned the production dates for Jason Reitman‘s The Front Runner which will star Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman.

American Senator Gary Hart’s presidential campaign in 1988 is derailed when he’s caught in a scandalous love affair.
The listing suggests that the film will begin next month on September 13th and wrap around October 27th. Shooting will be taking place in both Atlanta and Savannah.




 
Although, ProjectCasting suggests shooting will end in November...


The Front Runner is currently without a release date.
SOURCE: OMEGA UNDERGROUND

[jo]

Full cast announcement! Via Entertainment Weekly.

ew.com/movies/the-front-runner-gary-hart-hugh-jackman-cast/the-front-runner-full-cast-announcement

Save for Vera Farmiga and J.K.Simmons, most of the casting is with relatively unknown actors/actresses with known previous work.

It looks like the storyline may be a little unexpected, as director Jason Reitman calls it a political comedy.

The Story
The aim is for a film in the tradition of wry '70s-era political movies like The Candidate. Hart was hailed as a compassionate, dynamic candidate who predicted the rising threat of Mideast terrorism and the diminishing of the Cold War, but his campaign was thrown into disarray when reports surfaced that he may have had an extramarital affair. Before this, political journalists mostly overlooked the private lives of politicians. "It is a genuine ensemble with something like 20 main characters, and our casting director John Papsidera (Dunkirk) has worked tirelessly to put the time and care into every journalist and campaign member," Reitman says.

The Front Runner full cast announcement
In director Jason Reitman's The Front Runner, Hugh Jackman will star as '80s presidential candidate Sen. Gary Hart, in what the filmmaker describes as "a political comedy about the moment in our history when tabloid journalism and political journalism drove into the same lane." Today, EW reveals the full cast, including familiar faces from Girls, Silicon Valley, and Halt and Catch Fire.

Vera Farmiga as Lee Hart
Lee Hart, who has been married to Gary since 1958, will be portrayed by Vera Farmiga, who costarred in Reitman's 2009 comedy Up in the Air. In interviews, Lee always said their marriage was a case of opposites attracting — he was brash and charming, she was introverted and intellectual. The story of The Front Runner will show that relationship strained, but — as we now see three decades later — enduring.





J.K. Simmons as Bill Dixon
The Whiplash Oscar-winner will play Bill Dixon, the campaign manager for Hart ‘88, a longtime friend who knew the candidate from their days opposing the Vietnam War in the 1960s. He was one of the campaign's only officials from Hart's generation, overseeing a staff of young political idealists who considered Hart the JFK of their time. Simmons has had a role in every one of Reitman's films, starting with 2007's Thank You For Smoking.





Sara Paxton as Donna Rice
Rice was the actress and model who unwittingly became the catalyst for a scandal that would engulf the Hart campaign after the senator formed a relationship with her after a flirtatious night at a yacht party. She'll be played by Sara Paxton, who's known for the TNT series Murder in the First and movies such as 2004's Sleepover and 2006's Aquamarine.



Check out the rest of the character list and the related casting from the link.

It looks like it will be a very interesting slice of political drama, which while it happened in 1988, would or could unwittingly be seen from the viewpoint of today's politics and media profile.

There's something about a new movie with Hugh Jackman portraying a character in a real-life setting but from the spectrum of politics of some three decades ago which sounds very exciting to me. It is going to be a character study which could define another layer of versatility for this actor of film and stage!


Jo

[carouselkathy]

There's a comparison to Robert Redford's THE CANDIDATE, which in a way, was an intelligent satire.