Developing for well over a year now, not much has been heard about Tom McCarthy‘s Catholic church sex scandal drama since last summer, when Matt Damon was named as a frontrunner to star in the project. That didn’t happen, but the “Win Win” and “The Visitor” director has still managed to attract a pretty terrific cast, with his movie now gaining some very definite forward traction.
The Wrap and Deadline reports that Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Aaron Eckhart, Liev Schreiber and Stanley Tucci are aboard the movie that is now titled “Spotlight.” The true story tale centers on the journalists at the Boston Globe — Michael Rezendes, Sacha Pfeiffer and Matt Carroll, Spotlight Team Editor Walter “Robby” Robinson, Special Projects Editor Ben Bradlee Jr. and Globe Editor Marty Baron — who discovered and exposed that Cardinal Bernard Law, America’s Senior Catholic Prelate, was protecting priests accused of sexual assault by moving them to different parishes where they offended again.
McCarthy co-wrote the script with Josh Singer (“The West Wing,” “Fringe“), Open Road has domestic distribution locked up, and production will begin this fall. As for McCarthy’s “The Cobbler” with Adam Sandler, it’s wrapped up but no word yet on when it might appear, though there is still plenty of space on the fall festival circuit.