'The Current War' Pits Benedict Cumberbatch Against Nicholas Hoult and Michael Shannon
After a long wait, The Current War is set to arrive in theaters this fall.
The film dramatizes the battle between Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the duo George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) and Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) to bring electricity to the masses. Nearly as interesting as The Current War's plot-which centers on the cutthroat tactics Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla used in the run-up to the Chicago World's Fair- is the behind-the-scenes battle director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon waged to get his ideal version of The Current War to the screen.
The film was accepted for the 2017 Toronto Film Festival based on an early cut, and Gomez-Rejon had to rush the final edit. "I knew in my heart, and every fiber of my body was saying, it’s not ready," the director explained to Deadline.
As the due date neared, Gomez-Rejon realized that there just wasn't enough time. "I had gotten to the point where I realized it was likely I would have to make peace with having a film out there with my name on it that wasn’t me," he said. Indeed, when it did debut in Toronto, it was not well-received by critics.
Still, he got an unlikely second chance. He had originally made the film with Harvey Weinstein and his company-and not long after The Current War's film fest debut, the sexual assault allegations against Weinstein surfaced, effectively imploding The Weinstein Company. Thanks to that and a few other contractual loopholes, Gomez-Rejon was able to go back and re-edit the film.
Now, The Current War has "the shape and tone I always wanted."
The film opens in select theaters on October 4, 2019, with a wide release soon after, on October 11, 2019.
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