Tom Hanks Is Mister Rogers in the First Trailer for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
The casting couldn't be more perfect: quintessential Hollywood good guy Tom Hanks will play beloved children's television star Fred Rogers in a new biopic about the television pioneer. Here's what we know so far.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is loosely based on journalist Tom Junod's 1998 Esquire profile of Rogers.
It will center around how "a cynical journalist begrudgingly accepts an assignment to write a profile piece on the beloved icon and finds his perspective on life transformed," according to Variety, which first broke the news back in January.
Watch the first trailer from the film, which previews the plot, up top.
Junod is a fan of Hanks playing Rogers.
"The really cool thing about Tom Hanks playing Fred is that Fred and Tom Hanks are similar in a really essential way in that they are gentle people, they are soft spoken people, but they are powerful people," he told Esquire. "I think that Tom Hanks can really bring that aspect of Fred out."
The script for the film was written by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster.
Marielle Heller, who is perhaps best known for Diary of a Teenage Girl, will direct.
"As a mother, I am so inspired by the teachings of Fred Rogers and as a human I am in awe of his life’s work," Heller said. "I can’t wait to bring his story to the public and be a part of such a thoughtful, smart group of people who are all coming together to make this film, which truly feels to me like an antidote to our very fractured culture."
Other members of the cast include Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Chris Cooper, and the film, which was previously titled You Are My Friend, will premiere in November of this year.
The project will serve as something of a follow-up to the documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor.
That film premiered in 2018, just in time for the 50th anniversary of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Watch a clip from that film below:
It's already getting rave reviews.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival and thus far has a 97 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviewers calling out Hanks's performance, and the quiet nature of the film as high points. Per EW's Leah Greenblatt, the movie is "nearly impossible not to L-I-K-E it, exactly as it is."
The film hits theaters this November.
You Might Also Like
