Tom Hanks is teaming up again with Tom Tyker, the co-director of last year’s Cloud Atlas. They will be adapting Dave Eggers’ National Book Award finalist A Hologram For the King into a feature film.
Hanks is set to star in and produce the film, with Tyker handling the directing and writing. The two must have had an excellent working relationship on the set of Cloud Atlas because the final product itself did not prove very favorable. Atlas was a highly ambitious project with a budget of $102 million that failed to connect with audiences and only made $130 million at the box office. As for the critics, the three-hour long movie with its extensive ensemble cast was met with highly polarized reactions, and earned an approval rating of 68% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Without the Wachowski siblings’ (who co-directed Atlas) epic scale, hopefully Tyker and Hanks will have more success on bringing focus to this film by centering its story around the struggles of one central character. Hologram follows a down-on-his-luck businessman who decides to leave America and try to find better fortune in a rising Saudi Arabian city. The New York Times bestseller deals with common themes like overcoming a mid-life crisis and and answering the call to find one’s true purpose.
Financing and a studio home for the project are still coming together, and it may be awhile before it goes into production. Hanks is still currently starring on Broadway, playing ace crime reporter Mike McAlary in the Nora Ephron play Lucky Guy. But that does not mean there will be any absence of Hanks from the big screen in coming months. Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips, which features Hanks as the ship captain who saved his crews’ lives when their vessel was attacked by Somali pirates, is set to hit screens in October. Hanks will also play Walt Disney in the upcoming Saving Mr. Banks, set for a December release.
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