Gary Oldman has signed on the dotted line to take the lead role in the biopic of ‘Citizen Kane’ screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz, in ‘Mank’.
‘Gone Girl’ directed, David Fincher has also been announced to direct the film which is said to follow Mankiewicz’s tumultuous development of the ‘Kane’ script alongside director Orson Welles. Despite its critical success, the script was the only part of the film to win an Oscar.
The script had been written by Fincher’s father Jack before he passed away in 2003. Fincher will produce alongside producing partner Cean Chaffin and Douglas Urbanski. The film will be in black and white, with production due to commence in November.
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Considered by many to be the greatest film ever made, ‘Citizen Kane’ examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a character based in part upon the American newspaper magnates William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, and aspects of the screenwriters’ own lives. Kane’s career in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power. Narrated principally through flashbacks, the story is told through the research of a newsreel reporter seeking to solve the mystery of the newspaper magnate’s dying word: “Rosebud”.
While a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office. The film faded from view after its release but was subsequently returned to the public’s attention when it was praised by such French critics as André Bazin and given an American revival in 1956.
