The fight for the future is here in the latest trailer for “The Current War.” But instead of Benedict Cumberbatch playing Doctor Strange, he’s playing another icon, Thomas Edison, who faces off against his greatest rivals in George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla.
This latest look at “The Current War” is the first since the film was scooped up by 101 Studios for release. The biopic starring Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult and Tom Holland played at Toronto in 2017 and was in limbo after The Weinstein Co. let it go as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings.
But the new look at the film plays up the competition between Edison, Tesla and Westinghouse more so than the genius behind the men, and how the fight over electricity shaped our society.
“This is a battle of the brightest minds in America. Today the impossible becomes possible, and the man who controls that current controls the future,” Cumberbatch’s Edison says in the trailer.
There’s plenty more intrigue where that came from, including a line of wisdom about how power in the world isn’t “current,” it’s “currency,” and Westinghouse’s axiom that leaving a legacy rather than just being remembered is about leaving the world better than when you found it.
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”) directs “The Current War” from a script by Michael Mitnick. Katherine Waterston, Matthew Macfadyen and Tuppence Middleton also co-star, and Timur Bekmambetov and Basil Iwanyk are producing.
“The Current War” opens in theaters Oct. 4. Watch the film’s electrifying new trailer above.