Weir’s THE WAY BACK Trailer Debuts

By way of The Playlist, the Guardian.co.uk had debuted the first trailer for Peter Weir’s THE WAY BACK.

It still reminds me of 2008’s DEFIANCE – a film I truly liked. Plus, Peter Weir’s MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD was my favorite film of 2003. The cinematographer of that film, Russell Boyd, once again teams up with Weir for THE WAY BACK. By the look of this first trailer, an amazing film-going experience is ahead! However, for sake of argument, who thinks we’ve seen this movie a million times already? Enough with all the escape films? Has it been overdone?

THE WAY BACK, which recently had its World Premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, is inspired by Slavomir Rawicz’s acclaimed novel The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, as well as by other real life accounts. The film chronicles the escape of a small group of multi-national prisoners from a Siberian gulag in 1940 and their epic life affirming journey over thousands of miles across five hostile countries.

The film stars Ed Harris (Pollack, Gone Baby Gone), Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe, The Other Boleyn Girl), Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, The Lovely Bones), Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes, Kick Ass) and Colin Farrell (In Bruges, Crazy Heart).

Newly formed Newmarket/Wrekin Hill will release six-time Academy Award nominee Peter Weir’s THE WAY BACK and give it an Academy Award qualifying run beginning December 29, 2010 in Los Angeles. Look for a theatrical release upwards of 500 screens on January 21, 2011.