Lee Daniels began lining up a terrific cast for his follow-up to the Oscar-winning Precious earlier this year, when Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Tobey Maguire, and Sofía Vergara were announced as coming on board The Paperboy.
After a bit of a cast change-up, switching Maguire for John Cusack and Vergara for Nicole Kidman, and adding David Oyelowo to the list, filming got underway through the year and the project is now in post-production, expected to be released sometime next year.
We’ve now got a terrific first poster from the film, courtesy of The Film Stage, with Efron front and centre on this, looking excellent. Sitting beside him, unless I’m wildly mistaken, is Kidman who looks pretty damn transformed for the role.
“A directionless young man helps his reporter brother investigate the possible wrongful conviction of a man on death row, and in the process, falls for the woman whom the convict has been romancing through prison correspondence.”
The script comes from Pete Dexter, who has adapted his own 1995 novel of the same name, and this first official look at the film really does look good. Efron has been diversifying his career a little in the past few years, which I think has been a great move by him. We’ll next get to see him in The Lucky One next May, the adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ original novel, and judging by the trailer we saw for it earlier this month, that should be excellent too.
I initially thought that McConaughey would be playing the villain in this thriller, but that role is instead going to be taken by Cusack, who I can’t wait to see playing the antagonist. By all accounts, this is something to look forward to, and Daniels has set up a fantastic cast for the project. No word yet on exactly when we can look forward to seeing it in cinemas, but with this first poster arriving, hopefully it means that a release date is just on the horizon, along with the concurrent ad campaign. As usual, click to enlarge.
