Ruffalo: “I said to Ryan [Murphy, who directs], ‘Aren’t we at the age when a gay actor should be playing this?’ He made it clear to me that attitude wasn’t in the spirit of the film.”
Austin HargraveMark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Stanley Tucci are in advanced talks to board the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal film Spotlight.
The ripped-from-the-headlines drama chronicles the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of its pedophile priests in Massachusetts that came to light thanks to a yearlong investigation by The Boston Globe. Tom McCarthy (Win Win) is directing.
Ruffalo and McAdams would play reporters. Insiders say McAdams’ part is a supporting role.
Participant Media 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 then-untitled film had been set up at DreamWorks, but the studio quietly exited the project last year. Multiple suitors are said to be vying for the potentially controversial title.
Josh Singer wrote the Black List script.
The movie project 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 cover-ups worldwide that still reverberate today.
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.”
David Mizner is serving as a consultant and associate producer, while Jonathan King and Jeff Skoll are executive producing.
Email: Tatiana.Siegel@THR.com
Twitter: @TatianaSiegel27
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