Watchmen and Almost Famous alum Billy Crudup appears set to play, per Deadline, the male lead in 20th Century Women, new drama from writer/director Mike Mills (Thumbsucker). Earlier this summer, the AnnaPurna Pictures project was announced with Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right), Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha) and Elle Fanning (Maleficent) slated to star. Mills’ previous film- 2011’s Beginners– was an art house hit that eventually won actor Christopher Plummer an Academy Award.
20th Century Women, set in the late 1970s, is a multi-generational character study centering on a Dorothea (Bening), a mother trying to give her teenage son the best lease on life. She enlists the experiences of a wide range of people to help her with that- including a world weary photographer (Gerwig), a sexually precocious teenage girl (Fanning) and a former hippie (Crudup) who is one of Dorothea’s boarders. Crudup’s character is described as a bit of a slacker, one you may lack direction but has a sweet sweet side. This, as well as his handyman skills, makes him appealing to Dorothea and the other women.
Crudup can currently be seen in The Stanford Prison Experiment, fact-based story that was a hit at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. He will next be seen in Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered a massive sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church. That film, which will have its world premiere at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival and stars Michael Keaton (Birdman), Mark Ruffalo (Infinitely Polar Bear) and Rachel McAdams (Southpaw). Spotlight will receive an awards release date of November 6, 2015.
20th Century Women is likely heading to theaters sometime in 2016. As of yet, no distributor has snapped up U.S. rights to the title. Based on the pedigree of talent here, however, that will likely change very soon.
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