Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon to star in historical drama ‘Nuremberg’

Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Michael Shannon will star in Bluestone Entertainment and Walden Media’s post-war historical drama Nuremberg.

James Vanderbilt will direct from his screenplay based on Jack El-Hai’s book The Nazi And The Psychiatrist, with production scheduled for a February start in Hungary.

Malek will play American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, whose job it is to assess whether Nazi prisoners are fit to participate in the Nuremberg trials, which took place in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Kelley finds himself in a battle of wits with Hermann Göring (Crowe), one of the most senior Nazis. Shannon will play Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief prosecutor of at the trials.

Bluestone Entertainment, Walden Media, and Széchenyi Funds acquired the rights to El-Hai’s book and Vanderbilit’s screenplay, and are financing the project.

Richard Saperstein, William Sherak, Vanderbilt, Brad Fischer, Istvan Major, and Paul Neinstein are producing, along with production company Filmsquad.

Walden’s Frank Smith, Ben Tappan, and Cher Hawrysh will serve as executive producers, as well as Annie Saperstein, Brooke Saperstein, Beau Turpin, Nikolett Barabas and Béla Hajnal. The project was previously in development at Vanderbilt, Sherak, and Fischer’s Mythology Entertainment.

A prestigious crew includes Dariusz Wolski (Napoleon, The Martian) as cinematographer, Eve Stewart (The King’s Speech, Les Miserables) as production designer, and John Papsidera (Oppenheimer) as casting director.

Nuremberg marks Vanderbilt’s second feature after newsroom drama Truth. He also wrote the screenplay to and produced David Fincher’s Zodiac.

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