AFM: Kevin Spacey Cast as President Nixon in Drama ‘Elvis & Nixon’

Kevin Spacey has signed on to play Richard Nixon opposite Michael Shannon‘s Elvis Presley in Liza Johnson‘s Elvis & Nixon, a drama about the pair’s famous meeting at the White House on Dec. 21, 1970.

Prescience is financing Elvis & Nixon and Bloom is introducing the project to foreign buyers at AFM.

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Johnson will direct from a screenplay co-written by Cary Elwes and Hanala and Joey Sagal. Cassian Elwes, whose credits include Dallas Buyer’s Club and Lee Daniels’ The Butler, will produce Elvis & Nixon together with Holly Wiersma (Bobby, Dallas Buyers Club). Byron Wetzel and Prescience’s Tim Smith and Paul Brett are executive producing.

Elvis & Nixon recounts the moment when the King of Rock and Roll showed up on the White House lawn to request that the President of the United States swear him in as an undercover Federal Agent at large.

“It’s almost hard to fathom this story, which evolved in the Oval Office between these two extraordinary men,“ says Bloom’s Alex Walton. “It’s almost too good to be true.”

Adds producer Elwes: “After the enormous success of The Butler I have a deep affection for films set in the White House as does the public. To work with Shannon and Spacey on this movie at the height of their careers is a dream come true.”

Shannon is repped by CAA, Wetzel Entertainment and Morris, Yorn, Levine, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner & Gellman. Spacey is represented by CAA and Joanne Horowitz Management.

Twitter: @sroxborough