'The Fault in Our Stars' Lead Ansel Elgort to Star in Cold War Drama

By Mike Fleming Jr.

EXCLUSIVE: Ansel Elgort, hot off the male lead of Augustus Waters in The Fault in Our Stars, has signed to play the title role in Van Cliburn, a feature that is being mounted by Temple Hill partners Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen along with Crystal Entertainment in association with The Johnson Group. Godfrey and Bowen, who worked with Elgort on The Fault in Our Stars, will produce with Ari Daniel Pinchot and Robert M. Johnson is exec producer. Andrew Stern will write the script.

The film is based on the Howard Reich book Van Cliburn, and Elgort will play him in his formative years when, at age 23 in 1958, he emerged from out of nowhere to win the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. It was the first time the tournament was held, and was organized by the USSR after they had caught up to the U.S. in the nuclear arms race and completed the first successful space launch of Sputnik. Nikita Kruschev saw the competition as a way to lord Soviet superiority at a time when tensions between the two superpowers were sky high. The lanky pianist from Texas who graduated Juilliard but was taught by his neighborhood piano teacher mother, had a very unorthodox instinctive style that bowled won over the Russian judges and the proletariat crowd that followed every note of the competition. Though some tried to marginalize him to try knocking him from the competition, Van Cliburn made it to the finals, and judges fearing exile to Siberia brought in Kruschev as they deliberated. Kruschev asked them if he was the best, and said give him the prize when they answered yes. This was credited with bridging the Cold War gap and the pianist became a favorite in Russian and played for U.S. presidents alike, playing until he stopped abruptly in 1978. The prodigy died last year from bone cancer.

Elgort, a graduate of LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, started as a dancer and yes, he can play the piano. He appeared in the Carrie remake and co-starred with Shailene Woodley in Divergent, before they starred together in Fault. They are currently shooting the sequel Insurgent, and Elgort also wrapped Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children, opposite Adam Sandler. He also is a DJ and producer of Electronic Dance Music under his Ansolo logo. With all the EDM projects percolating in Hollywood, can a movie be far behind?

For Temple Hill, that puts the producers in business with both of the male leads from Fault, the sleeper summer hit for Fox 2000. They are adapting the John Green novel Paper Towns, as a star vehicle for Fault co-star Nat Wolff, with Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter adapting their second bestseller by the author. Elgort is repped by CAA and Brookside Artist Management’s Emily Gerson Saines.

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