Two months after landing Hugh Jackman for the lead, Jason Reitman‘s upcoming political drama The Front Runner has filled out the rest of its cast. The film will be based in part on the book All the Truth Is Out by Matt Bai, who has co-written the screenplay. The cast list is extensive, but includes some sizable standouts like Vera Farmiga, J.K. Simmons, Sara Paxton, Kevin Pollak, and Mike Judge.
Per EW…
The aim is for a film in the tradition of wry ’70s-era political movies like The Candidate. Hart was hailed as a compassionate, dynamic candidate who predicted the rising threat of Mideast terrorism and the diminishing of the Cold War, but his campaign was thrown into disarray when reports surfaced that he may have had an extramarital affair. Before this, political journalists mostly overlooked the private lives of politicians.
Since that set-up is a bit vague from a narrative standpoint, I’ll go a step further for you. The Front Runner is a biopic about former Senator Gary Hart‘s 1988 presidential campaign, which initially saw him as a shoe in. Hart opted for maximum transparency with the public, challenging the press to follow him around as much as possible. It worked like gangbusters for Hart for awhile, but eventually blew up in his face when reporters uncovered his secret affair. Whoops! Hart ended up losing the Democratic nomination to Michael Dukakis, who in turn lost the presidential race to George H.W. Bush.
The Front Runner is a biopic about former Senator Gary Hart. It is directed by Jason Reitman, from a screenplay by Matt Bai, Jay Carson, and Jason Reitman. The picture is produced by Aaron Gilbert, Helen Estabrook, and Jason Reitman. The film stars Hugh Jackman as ‘Senator Gary Hart’, Vera Farmiga as ‘Lee Hart’, J.K. Simmons as ‘Bill Dixon’, Sara Paxton as ‘Donna Rice’, Tommy Dewey as ‘John Emerson’, Molly Ephraim as ‘Irene Kelly’, Spencer Garrett as ‘Bob Woodward’, Mike Judge as ‘Jim Savage’, Kevin Pollak as ‘Bob Martindale’, Alex Karpovsky as ‘Mike Stratton’, Mark O’Brian as ‘Billy Shore’, Mamoudou Athie as ‘A.J. Parker’, Josh Brener as ‘Doug Wilson’, Kaitlyn Dever as ‘Andrea Hart’, Ari Graynor ‘Ann Devroy’, Toby Huss as ‘Billy Broadhurst’, and Steve Zissis as ‘Tom Fiedler’.
The Front Runner will arrive in theaters in 2018.
