Lionsgate has announced it will release CBS Films’ “Patriots Day,” a movie about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt, on Dec. 21 in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. The film will then receive a wide release on Jan. 13, 2017.
Directed by Peter Berg, the film stars Mark Wahlberg as a fictional Boston cop and J.K. Simmons as Watertown PD Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese, who chased down terrorists Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“Patriots Day” is expected to be the first film released about the Boston Marathon bombing, but it won’t be the first to start production.
Lionsgate, Bold Films and Mandeville Films are currently producing David Gordon Green’s “Stronger,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal as survivor Jeff Bauman and Tatiana Maslany as his fiancée Erin Hurley. Planned for 2017, that film is a more intimate tale about one man and his family, as opposed to “Patriots Day,” which will have a broader scope.
Matt Charman (“Bride of Spies”) wrote “Patriots Day,” which Wahlberg is producing with Scott Stuber, Hutch Parker, Dylan Clark, Stephen Levinson and Michael Radutzky (“60 Minutes”). Production is slated to start next month.
CBS Films has teamed with its sibling division “60 Minutes” on “Patriots Day,” which will be distributed by Lionsgate.
“Patriots Day” currently has Dec. 21 to itself, though it will arrive just five days after Disney drops “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” in theaters and New Line releases the Will Smith movie “Collateral Beauty.” The film will then open wide against Sony’s “The Dark Tower,” Paramount’s “Monster Trucks” and WB’s “Geostorm.”