Mahershala Ali & Tom Hardy To Star in NYC Crime Thriller ‘77 Blackout’
Courtesy of JC Olivera/FilmMagic & Universal Pictures.
Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is set to share the big screen with Tom Hardy in ‘77 Blackout,’ a crime thriller based on the actual night when New York City lost power and descended into chaos. Cary Joji Fukunaga will be directing the project (‘No Time to Die’) and Charles Roven will produce (‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘The Dark Knight’). The screenplay was written by Frank John Hughes with further revisions by Fukunaga.
Producing alongside is Madison Weireter (‘Wonder Woman’) from Atlas Entertainment, and William Green and Aaron Ginsburg from The Cut.
It all kicks off at the Cannes market when Black Bear introduces the film to international buyers — with WME sponsoring U.S. rights.
The film’s synopsis has been released: In 1977, five rogue police officers formulate a plan to rob three criminal strongholds – the Hong Kong Triads, the Italian Mafia, and the Harlem Mob – all in one night. When a blackout sweeps the city the night of the robbery, the crew is forced to navigate a hellish landscape as years of being overworked and underpaid forces each of them to confront their own morality.
‘The 1977 blackout started when a series of lightning strikes from a storm in Westchester County hit a Con Ed substation on the Hudson River, tripping major circuit breakers and overloading main transmission lines. A second lightening strike hit Yonkers which knocked out two more transmission lines.’
The city quite literally turned into the fictitious Gotham city overnight, as the blackout lasted for 25+ hours.
