It looks like Chicago writer Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for “The Imitation Game,” will be re-teaming with Morten Tyldum, who directed the acclaimed film about World War II Nazi code-cracker Alan Turing.
Deadline reports Tyldum is attached to direct the proposed film based on Moore’s upcoming novel “The Last Days of Night,” which the former Hyde Park resident also has adapted for the big screen.
As was the case with “The Imitation Game,” Moore’s “Last Days” is about another great technological genius: Thomas Edison. The novel’s publisher describes the book (and presumably the proposed film) as being about “the nature of genius, the cost of ambition and the battle to electrify America.”
In the late 1880s, electricity was a new phenomenon. While Thomas Edison won the first patent for electric power, he ultimately sued his rival, George Westinghouse, for the unbelievable sum of $1 billion.
To defend himself, Westinghouse hired a young, 26-year-old recent law school graduate, Paul Cravath, who went on to found one of the most prestigious New York law firms: Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
By the way, there is a competing film in the works — based on similar material. The Weinstein Company is developing “The Current War,” which reportedly has Benedict Cumberbatch (who starred in “The Imitation Game”) lined up to play Edison, and possibly Jake Gyllenhaal considering the role of Westinghouse.
