Billy Crudup in Talks for Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandal Film ‘Spotlight’ (Exclusive)

Billy Crudup is in talks to join Participant Media’s Catholic Church sex abuse scandal film Spotlight.

Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber and Stanley Tucci have already boarded the ensemble drama.

Based on a true story, the film chronicles the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of pedophile priests in Massachusetts that came to light thanks to a yearlong investigation by The Boston Globe. Tom McCarthy (Win Win) is directing from a screenplay he and Josh Singer wrote.

Crudup would play Eric MacLeish, a high-powered member of the Boston legal establishment. Ruffalo and McAdams are set to play reporters. Tucci will portray attorney Mitchell Garabedian. Keaton is onboard to tackle Spotlight Team editor Walter “Robby” Robinson, while Schreiber is set as then-Globe editor Marty Baron.

Participant is financing the film, which is being produced by Michael Sugar and Steve Golin of Anonymous Content and Rocklin/Faust’s Nicole Rocklin and Blye Faust. Open Road will distribute in the United States. eOne is taking international sales rights and will distribute in its territories. The project had been set up at DreamWorks, but the studio quietly exited the project last year.

David Mizner is serving as a consultant and associate producer, while Jonathan King and Jeff Skoll are executive producing.

The movie tells of how the Globe‘s “Spotlight Team” reporters spent a year interviewing victims and reviewing thousands of pages of documents and discovered years of cover-ups by church leadership. Their reporting eventually led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, who had hidden years of serial abuse by other priests, and opened the floodgates to revelations of molestation and similar cover-ups worldwide.

The Globe team won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service “for its courageous, comprehensive coverage of sexual abuse by priests, an effort that pierced secrecy; stirred local, national and international reaction; and produced changes in the Roman Catholic Church.”

Crudup is no stranger to playing real-life characters, having portrayed J. Edgar Hoover in Public Enemies and Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits. He is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment.

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