Clint Eastwood may direct Fox/Disney’s feature about Richard Jewell, the 1996 Summer Games security guard who went from hero to suspect.
Should Eastwood join the project and step behind the camera, it’ll be the first feature film he’s directed since 2008’s Changeling.
The Ballad Of Richard Jewell follows the titular character as he was wrongly accused of a bomb that went off at the ’96 Summer Games, that killed one person and injured dozens of others. Jewell’s life was turned upside down after he discovered a backpack containing pipe bombs. Despite sounding the alarm and helping to clear the area of bystanders, he found himself as the main suspect in a terrorism plot. Jewell was eventually cleared, but never truly recovered from media frenzy painted him as an overweight failed cop and mama’s boy.
Should Eastwood join the project, he’ll direct from a script penned by Billy Ray. Director Ezra Edelman was last to consider the project.
Deadline was first to report the news
