The Weinstein Company has released a first look at Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison in The Current War.
Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game, Doctor Strange) stars as Thomas Edison alongside Michael Shannon’s (Waco, Nocturnal Animals) George Westinghouse. Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, upcoming Alien: Covenant), Tom Holland (Captain America: Civil War, the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming), Matthew Macfadyen (Ripper Street, Anna Karenina) and Tuppence Middleton (War & Peace, The Imitation Game) also star with Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Apocalypse, Mad Max: Fury Road) set to play Nikola Tesla.
Written by Michael Mitnick (The Giver), the film will be directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), with Basil Iwanyk (Wind River, Hotel Mumbai), Timur Bekmanbetov, and Harvey Weinstein producing, and Cumberbatch and Adam Ackland executive producing.
Set in the late 1880s, The Current War details the rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse and the race to create a marketable and sustainable electricity system. Edison championed the use of a direct current for electric power distribution over an alternating current, which was backed by Westinghouse Electric and a host of European companies.
