Taglines: If you can’t beat the system… change it
Two determined mothers, a car dealer/bartender (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and a teacher (Viola Davis), look to transform their children’s failing inner city school. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy and corruption from the teachers’ union president (Holly Hunter) and the school’s principal (Bill Nunn), they risk everything to make a difference in the education and future of their children.
Won’t Back Down (previously titled Still I Rise, Learning To Fly and Steel Town) is a drama film directed by Daniel Barnz starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis and Holly Hunter. It was released on September 28, 2012.
The film is loosely based on the events surrounding the use of the parent trigger law in Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles, California in 2010, where several groups of parents attempted to take over several failing public schools. The Parent Trigger law, which was passed in California and other states in 2010, allowed parents to enforce administrative overhaul and overrule administrators in under-performing public schools if petitioned. If successful, petitions allow parents to direct changes such as dismissal of staff and potential conversion of a school to a charter school.
The film grossed just $5.3 million at the box office domestically, and, according to Box Office Mojo, had the worst opening-weekend performance of any film to open in more than 2,500 theatres – collecting just $1,035 per screen, until the record was broken by Victor Frankenstein in 2015.
Won’t Back Down (2012)
Directed by: Daniel Barnz
Starring: Viola Davis, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Holly Hunter, Rosie Perez, Oscar Isaac, Emily Alyn Lind, Dante Brown, Lance Reddick, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Liza Colón-Zayas, Keith Flippen
Screenplay by: Brin Hill, Daniel Barnz
Production Design by: Rusty Smith
Cinematography by: Roman Osin
Film Editing by: Kristina Boden
Costume Design by: Luca Mosca
Set Decoration by: Diana Stoughton
Art Direction by: Gary Kosko
Music by: Marcelo Zarvos
MPAA Rating: PG for thematic elements and language.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: September 28, 2012
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