Sean Penn to Direct Bradley Cooper in Untitled Jan. 6 Friendship Drama

Sean Penn has written and is set to direct Bradley Cooper in a movie set amid the events of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

Cooper is in talks to star in the project, with a mid-2027 production start targeted. It’s understood the untitled film is not about the events of Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington D.C. directly, but rather an unexpected friendship involving a police officer that sprang up amid the U.S. Capitol riot.

Penn will produce with John Ira Palmer and John Wildermuth under their Projected Picture Works banner. Warner Bros. is in talks to acquire the film, with CAA Media Finance handling the possible deal making for the producers.

Warner Bros. of course released this year’s top Oscars winner: Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which won six awards, including best picture and landed Penn his third Oscar with a best supporting actor trophy. Penn wasn’t on hand to accept the award and it was later revealed he had met with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Speaking about his absence at the Tribeca Festival earlier this month, Penn said he struggled attending awards shows in the past (“The best that I could ever muster was relief,” he admitted.) and realized when he attended the Golden Globes that he couldn’t go to other such ceremonies.

“Knowing that I wasn’t going to do that anymore, I did one before that this year. I went to the Golden Globes; I’d never been to that before. And that’s where I decided, ‘I can’t do this.’ [The Oscars] always represented social discomfort to me,” he said.

That added to his best actor wins for Mystic River in 2004 and Milk in 2009. Penn launched his acting career in the early 1980s with ensemble roles in the military thriller Taps and the beloved comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, before turning toward serious roles and delivering riveting performances in State of Grace and The Indian Runner.

Deadline was the first to announce the untitled Jan. 6 drama project. Penn and Projected Picture Works are represented by CAA. Cooper is represented by Range Media Partners.

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