First Look At Steve Carrell In Bennett Miller’s FOXCATCHER

Here’s a first look at Bennett Miller’s FOXCATCHER starring Steve Carrell.

Sony Pictures Classics announced last week that they will distribute the film in North America, currently in post-production, and will be released on December 20.

The cast also includes Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave and Anthony Michael Hall.

Based on a true story. It’s 1987, USA Olympic wrestling champions and brothers, Mark (Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Ruffalo), are preparing to defend their ’84 Golds at the ’88 Seoul Games. Mark, always in his brother’s shadow, loses his assistant coaching position, leaving him financially unstable although more eager than ever to prove himself in the upcoming Olympics. Unexpectedly, Mark receives a call from millionaire John E. du Pont (Carell), who flies Mark to his Pennsylvania estate where Du Pont intends to build a world class training facility for the USA Olympic Wrestling Team. Mark, awestruck and desperate, agrees to move there and pulls together a team of top wrestlers to train at DuPont’s Foxcatcher Farms.

All is going well, the wrestlers train in Foxcatcher’s magnificent facilities and even Dave moves his family to the estate to help coach. Soon however, Du Pont’s true colors show and he proves to be a bad influence on Mark, whose drive and focus wane. Mark is fed up when Du Pont’s distractions cause him to nearly lose the Olympic trials, and so he strikes a deal with Du Pont that Dave will stay and coach if Mark is allowed to train elsewhere. With Mark gone, Dave becomes the target of Du Pont’s worsening schizophrenia, which grows lethal.

Miller’s previous films, CAPOTE (Sony Pictures Classics) and MONEYBALL (Columbia Pictures) were both Academy Award nominees for Best Picture. The screenplay is by E. Max Frye (SOMETHING WILD, AMOS & ANDREW) and Dan Futterman (CAPOTE).

The film is produced by Megan Ellison under her company Annapurna Pictures, as well as, Miller and Anthony Bregman.

Photo: EW