This year's Times BFI London Film Festival will open with the premiere of Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon on October 15. Based on the brilliant and multi-award-winning play by Peter Morgan, who also wrote the script, Frost/Nixon tells of a famed interview that journalist David Frost (Michael Sheen) conducted with Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) in the wake of the Watergate scandal. In a grilling that was broadcast over four nights, Frost pushed the ex-president to admit to abuses of power before he resigned. As well as Sheen and Llangella, the cast includes Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Hall, Toby Jones and Matthew Macfadyen. Below is a new image from the film, which you can click to enlarge.
Frost/Nixon's a strong choice for the LFF, given that the play first showed in London and the film has strong British involvement. It will be interesting to see what Howard has done to transform a play that mainly centered on two men sitting opposite each other into something that works cinematically. It's a fantastic play, so let's hope the movie turns out to be just as good.