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EXCLUSIVE: In the first project that has come unglued from Fox since the Disney acquisition, Universal Pictures has picked up rights to The News of The World, an adaptation of the Paulette Jiles novel that is re-teaming Captain Phillips’ director Paul Greengrass and star Tom Hanks.

Scripted by Lion’s Luke Davies, the novel 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.

Playtone’s Hanks and Gary Goetzman are producing with Pretty Pictures’ Gail Mutrux and Gregory Goodman, latter of whom teamed with Greengrass on 22 July and Jason Bourne. Playtone has a long relationship with Fox 2000 and Elizabeth Gabler, and Hanks and Goetzman set up the picture with her label in May, 2017.

Gabler was surprised to learn that there won’t be a place for her or her Fox 2000 label at Disney, in a development that was a shocker to the town and every filmmaker who has a project there. This is the first project to come unglued and find a new home.

It was an easy move for Playtone, which collaborated with Universal on the Mamma Mia! movies and other films. Hanks will next appear in Toy Story 4 and It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a film about the beloved and iconic children’s television host Fred Rogers.

Greengrass returns to Universal where his credits include multiple Jason Bourne movies, as well as Green Zone and United 93, for which he scored an Oscar nomination. He most recently directed the Netflix drama 22 July.

Hanks and Greengrass are represented by CAA

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News of the World - In Theaters Christmas

This Christmas, Universal Pictures is proud to present Tom Hanks starring in News of the World, a moving story written and directed by Paul Greengrass, reuniting for the first time with his star from their 2013 Best Picture nominee Captain Phillips.

Five years after the end of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Hanks), a widower and veteran of three wars, now moves from town to town as a non-fiction storyteller, sharing the news of presidents and queens, glorious feuds, devastating catastrophes, and gripping adventures from the far reaches of the globe.

In the plains of Texas, he crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel, System Crasher), a 10-year-old taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own. Johanna, hostile to a world she’s never experienced, is being returned to her biological aunt and uncle against her will.

Kidd agrees to deliver the child where the law says she belongs. As they travel hundreds of miles into the unforgiving wilderness, the two will face tremendous challenges of both human and natural forces as they search for a place that either can call home.

News of the World is directed by Greengrass (the Bourne films, United 93) from his screenplay with Luke Davies (Lion), based on the National Book Award finalist and best-selling novel by Paulette Jiles. The film is produced by Gary Goetzman (Mamma Mia! franchise, Greyhound), Gail Mutrux (The Danish Girl, Donnie Brasco) and Gregory Goodman (22 July, 8 Mile). The executive producers are Steven Shareshian and Tore Schmidt. The film’s music is by eight-time Academy Award® nominee James Newton Howard.

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