It is looking as if a mistrial has been declared for The Trial Of The Chicago 7.
The period drama which has Aaron Sorkin set to direct has had its pre-production shut down over concerns for the film’s budget according to breaking reports.
With recent bigger budgeted 1960s set films such as Detroit and First Man not doing as well as hoped for at the box office, Trial‘s ability to find a large enough audience to justify its budget was brought into question. The project was in active pre-production with a February 2019 shooting start scheduled.
The real life story about a group of seven anti-war activists who were accused by the federal government of conspiring to start riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention was set to star Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne and Jonathan Majors. Michael Keaton had been in talks to play Attorney General Ramsey Clarke but pulled out of talks this past weekend.
The project, which was written by Sorkin, has been in development at Steven Spielberg’s production shingle Amblin since at least 2008. At various points Peter Greengrass and Ben Stiller both considered working on the project, but backed off for various reasons.
Sorkin signed onto the film last month as a follow up to his 2017 feature directorial debut Molly’s Game.
