While not a whole lot of people care if Tom Hanks stars in anything anymore, they do care about what his production banner Playtone Pictures does. Could it be possible the Forrest Gump is simply a better producer than he ever was an actor? A debate for another day for sure. Today’s news coming out of Variety is that the actor is gearing up production on an indie drama that will tackle the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The project will be called Parkland which refers to the hospital that was at the center of all the activity surrounding the assassination. President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby all died there. This will be an ensemble piece that tackles the viewpoints of several key players in the tragic day–something that sounds oddly familiar.
Let’s not forget that in 2006 Emilio Estevez directed a similar feature called Bobby that centered on the assassination of President Kennedy’s then U.S. Senator brother Robert Kennedy. The pic starred Anthony Hopkins, Heather Graham, Laurence Fishburne, Emilio Estevez, Nick Cannon, Harry Belafonte, Helen Hunt, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, and Ashton Kutcher among others.
That movie did not find good reviews, but it did managed to make $20.7 million worldwide. While bad for the cast, it was far from hideous by indie standards.