After receiving an Oscar nomination for his electrifying turn in The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner has exploded from being a face of independent cinema to one ubiquitous in summer blockbusters and top-notch dramas. From The Town to The Bourne Legacy, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol to The Avengers, Jeremy Renner has kept a very full schedule. He isn’t slowing down anytime soon either, as he has two very intriguing films coming up. The first is in David O. Russell’s American Hustle, the second is Kill the Messenger.
Kill the Messenger is based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb, who alleged in a series of 1996 stories that the CIA had connections to the crack cocaine trade. Renner plays Webb in the film and in an USA Today article examining the story behind Kill the Messenger, the first photos were revealed.
If a picture is indeed worth one thousand words, then the focus and drive that Renner shows in these two pictures definitely suggests that the articles Webb wrote are splashed full with fascinating breaking news.
After the investigative journalist went public with the information, he was smeared into losing his job. In 2004, Webb killed himself, an act that Kill the Messenger suggests was due to the blowback from the smear campaign against him. “Everything he had in his life was his job,” Renner told USA Today. “And you take that away from a man, then it leads to a tragic situation.”
Jeremy Renner also serves as a producer on Kill the Messenger, which will be the actor’s first producing credit. Journalist Peter Landesman (the writer/director of Parkland) wrote the film’s screenplay. Rounding out the colourful supporting cast is Ray Liotta, Rosemarie Dewitt, Tim Blake Nelson, Michael Sheen, Barry Pepper, Michael Kenneth Williams and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Focus Features has set the film for a 2014 release.
Check out the photo above and below and let us know what you think in the comments section.
