Bryan Cranston recently gave a brilliant performance on the stage as President Lyndon Johnson in All the Way, and now we have confirmation of who will be directing the film adaptation.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jay Roach has been attached to direct All the Way for HBO. Roach previously worked with HBO on Game Change, a dramatization of the 2008 presidential election, as well as Recount, which depicted the 2000 election. His other films include comedies such as The Campaign, Meet the Parents and the Austin Powers films.
The original play All the Way was written by Robert Schenkkan and premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2012. It was then brought to Broadway in 2014 with Bryan Cranston playing the lead role. The play received rave reviews, winning the Tony award for best play and scoring Bryan Cranston a win for best actor.
This will be the second collaboration between Roach and Cranston, the first being the upcoming film Trumbo. In that film Cranston plays Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter who was put on Hollywood's blacklist in 1947 after he refused to testify in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, according to Entertainment Weekly.
All the Way takes a look at the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, focusing on his first year in office in the wake of the Kennedy assassination.
Roach seems like a solid choice for the film, having a fair amount of experience with political films and with Game Change having earned five Emmy awards. However, as noted by the Hollywood Reporter, it's not clear when All the Way will fit into Roach's schedule, as he's currently attached to a number of projects including The Psychopath Test with Scarlett Johansson.
Robert Schenkkan himself will be adapting his play for HBO. The film will be produced by Steven Spielberg, Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey along with Robert Schenkkan and Bryan Cranston.
image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com