Tom Hanks’ News Of The World Trailer Released

Universal Pictures today released the trailer for News of the World, the new film from director Paul Greengrass and star Tom Hanks, which reunites the duo for the first time since 2013, when they worked together on the Best Picture nominee Captain Phillips. The film, which takes place after the end of the Civil War and teams Hanks with a pre-teen girl played by Helena Zengel, seems to share some DNA with True Grit, the classic John Wayne film that was remade by the Coen Brothers with Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld back in 2010 and helped to make Steinfeld a household name for most movie fans.

Those similarities aside, News of the World is actually a straight adaptation of the National Book Award finalist and best-selling novel of the same name from author Paulette Jiles.

You can see the trailer here:

Here’s how Universal officially describes the film:

Five years after the end of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Hanks), a widower and veteran of three wars, now moves from town to town as a non-fiction storyteller, sharing the news of presidents and queens, glorious feuds, devastating catastrophes, and gripping adventures from the far reaches of the globe.

In the plains of Texas, he crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel, System Crasher), a 10-year-old taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own. Johanna, hostile to a world she’s never experienced, is being returned to her biological aunt and uncle against her will.

Kidd agrees to deliver the child where the law says she belongs. As they travel hundreds of miles into the unforgiving wilderness, the two will face tremendous challenges of both human and natural forces as they search for a place that either can call home.

News of the World is directed by Greengrass (the Bourne films, United 93) from his screenplay with Luke Davies (Lion), based on the National Book Award finalist and best-selling novel by Paulette Jiles. The film is produced by Gary Goetzman (Mamma Mia! franchise, Greyhound), Gail Mutrux (The Danish Girl, Donnie Brasco) and Gregory Goodman (22 July, 8 Mile). The executive producers are Steven Shareshian and Tore Schmidt. The film’s music is by perennial Academy Award nominee James Newton Howard. The movie, which also features The Flash veteran Neil Sandilands, will be in theaters (at least the pandemic notwithstanding) on December 25, 2020.