Helena Zengel To Star Opposite Tom Hanks In Universal’s ‘News Of The World’
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Paul Greengrass’ News of the World has found its child lead in 11-year-old German actress Helena Zengel.
Zengel will play the young girl who is escorted by Tom Hanks’ Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd to her aunt and uncle in San Antonio after she’s rescued from the Kiowa Indian tribe who kidnapped her and killed her family four years earlier. The story is set days before the Civil War. Hanks’ Kidd travels from town to town to read the news to locals who would otherwise not know what is going on in the world. In the book, Zengel’s character is an ornery youngster who didn’t want to be rescued and brought to her relatives. Together the duo face the inhospitable frontier.
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Zengel most recently starred in System Crasher, a film by Nora Fingscheidt that will represent Germany as the official submission for the 92nd Oscar in the category Best International Feature Film. That movie made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival back in February. Deadline exclusively reported that News of the World, which was originally set up at Fox 2000, moved over to Uni soon after Disney’s acquisition of Fox. The pic reps a re-team for Hanks and director Greengrass who worked on the Oscar-nominated Captain Phillips ($219M WW box office).
Hanks and Gary Goetzman will produce News of the World through Playtone with Gregory Goodman (22 July, Jason Bourne) as well as Gail Mutrux through her Pretty Pictures. Greengrass’ wrote the latest version of the script, with an earlier draft by Luke Davies (Lion).
Zengel is represented by Bahl For Actors.
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