Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions have set an awards-season release date of Sept. 22 for Jake Gyllenhaal’s Boston Marathon bombing movie “Stronger.”
Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff Bauman, while Tatiana Maslany plays his girlfriend Erin Hurley, in a story about love triumphing over adversity. Clancy Brown (“Hail, Caesar!”) portrays Bauman’s father and Miranda Richardson plays his mother Patty Bauman.
The film is a production of Lionsgate’s Summit Entertainment label, Mandeville Films, Bold Films, and Nine Stories. It’s Gyllenhaal’s first production under his Nine Stories banner.
Inspired by a true story and based on the New York Times bestseller by Bauman and Bret Witter, the film stars Gyllenhaal as the working-class Boston man whose iconic photo from the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing gained worldwide notice.
Bauman was waiting for his girlfriend at the finish line of the marathon when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded, killing three people and injuring more than 260 others. When Bauman awoke the next day after surgeries and realized he could not speak. He asked for a pad and paper, and wrote: “Saw the guy. Looked right at me.”
That set off a massive manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of the murders last year. The book, published in 2014, also describes Bauman’s attempts to walk again and face his new circumstances with grace.
The movie is directed by David Gordon Green from a screenplay written by Boston local John Pollono. Producers are Todd Lieberman & David Hoberman (“The Fighter”), Gyllenhaal, Scott Silver, and Michel Litvak (“Whiplash”). Executive producers are Riva Marker, Peter McGuigan, Anthony Mattero, Gary Michael Walters, Jeffrey Stott, and Nicolas Stern.
This marks the second Lionsgate movie about the Boston Marathon bombing — “Patriots Day,” co-financed with CBS Films and starring Mark Wahlberg, was released late last year. The news about “Stronger” was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.
