Taglines: The week America went tabloid.
Gary Hart, a U.S. senator from Colorado, is the widely accepted front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. After losing the 1984 nomination to vice-president Walter Mondale, Hart decides to run for President of the United States. At one point during his campaign, against the will of his manager Bill Dixon, Hart challenges the press and public to “follow him around” while he’s not campaigning on weekends.
This proves to be a mistake when in 1987, photos of him and journalist Donna Rice are published by Miami Herald Reporters. In a desperate attempt to clear his name, Hart tries to fix his reputation at a news event concerning the affair but to no avail. Because of the consequences of his actions, Hart is disgraced, berated by Dixon, and forced to drop out of the campaign while his wife Oletha remains to be close with him. Donna also announces that she has personally denied sleeping with the now former senator.
The Front Runner is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Jason Reitman, based on the 2014 book All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid by Matt Bai, who co-wrote the screenplay with Reitman and Jay Carson. The film stars Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, J. K. Simmons, and Alfred Molina. It chronicles the rise of American Senator Gary Hart, a Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, and his subsequent fall from grace when media reports surfaced of his extramarital affair.
The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 6, 2018, by Columbia Pictures. The film received mixed reviews; while Jackman was praised for his performance, critics said the rest of the cast felt wasted and the film did not “dive deep enough into its central issues to make a compelling argument.
Principal photography began on September 18, 2017, with Jackman revealing the first image from the set that day. Production also took place in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia. The Front Runner made $6,849 from four theaters on its first day, Tuesday (an average of $1,712), a figure Deadline Hollywood noted as underwhelming.
The site wrote that it is rare for a film to open limited on a Tuesday, and the film’s impending opening weekend would be the true gauge of its box office strength. The film ended up making $56,000 in its opening weekend (a six-day total of $76,199), which Deadline called “awful” and “really horrible when you consider that it’s a limited launch of an awards contender wannabe.” For its theatrical run The Front Runner earned $2,000,105 in domestic box office gross.
The Front Runner (2018)
Directed by: Jason Reitman
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, J.K. Simmons, Mark O’Brien, Molly Ephraim, Chris Coy, Alex Karpovsky, Josh Brener, Tommy Dewey, Kaitlyn Dever, Oliver Cooper, Jenna Kanell
Screenplay by: Matt Bai, Jason Reitman, Jay Carson
Production Design by: Steve Saklad
Cinematography by: Eric Steelberg
Film Editing by: Stefan Grube
Costume Design by: Danny Glicker
Set Decoration by: Melinda Sanders
Art Direction by: Cameron Beasley
Music by: Rob Simonsen
MPAA Rating: R for language including some sexual references.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: November 6, 2018
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