As both one of the most influential media networks and a full-fledged, cartoonish right-wing propaganda organization, calling Fox News controversial is like calling the sky blue. To list all its network scandals, host scandals, and Roger Ailes’ personal scandals alone would take more than 2 hours of runtime, let alone a miniseries. Yet the quiet release of Lionsgate’s trailer for the Fox-centric drama Bombshell is front and center about the media empire’s most notorious recent controversy- Alies’ forced removal in 2016 for numerous charges of sexual harassment prior to his 2017 death- even if it doesn’t outright spell it.
The trailer is quiet, yet disturbingly tense. We see Margot Robbie’s Kayla Pospisil, a fictional Fox News producer (blond, of course) walk into an elevator, only to be joined by Megyn Kelly. She’s played by Charlize Theron, but the prosthetics are honestly so impressive I actually mistook her for Kelly, or a doppelgänger at the least. A floor later, Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) shows up and the nonverbal tension between these three women is obvious, yet uncomfortable. They never say a word to each other, but you can tell something is up. It ends with Pospisil and Carlson exiting the elevator onto Fox’s main office floor at the Avenue of the Americas.
Alongside Theron, Carlson and Robbie, Bombshell’s cast includes John Lithgow as Roger Alies, a role also played by Russell Crow in the ShowTime series The Loudest Voice. Other actors on board include Allison Janney as Susan Estrich, Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch and Alice Eve as Ainsley Earhardt. Mark Duplass, Kate McKninnon and Rob Delaney also have supporting roles.
Bombshell is directed by Jay Roach and currently set for a December 2019 release. Watch the trailer below:
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