Paul Giamatti has just been cast to play Nikita Khrushchev in the upcoming HBO film, K Blows Top.
The film, which is based on Peter Carlson’s book of the same name, will chronicle Khrushchev’s two week trip in the States back in 1959.
Giamatti now moves from playing John Adams, the second US President, to playing the Premier of the Soviet Union – two very honorable roles. Let’s hope he can nail the Soviet side of things since we know he can nail the American side.
Further details about the film are provided by Variety, and they state that:
Veteran feature and telepic scribe Paul Bernbaum is set to pen the script. Playtone’s Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are exec producers with Perri Kipperman and David Stern serving as co-exec producers.
Khrushchev’s tour was the brainchild of President Eisenhower, who suggested the visit as a way of settling the dispute between the superpowers over West Berlin. But the formal invitation that was sent to the Communist Party boss inadvertently left out Eisenhower’s condition that the sides reach a compromise on West Berlin before Khrushchev made the trek.
Overall, I think this will be a very interesting film and I now am looking forward to its release.
