Josh Trank exploded onto the scene at the age of just 27 when his feature-length debut Chronicle hit theaters back in 2012, earning over ten times its $12 million budget back at the box office and receiving widespread critical acclaim. It seemed as though he was genre cinema’s newest wunderkind, until his next movie saw him almost drive his entire career directly off a very steep cliff.
The tales surrounding Fantastic Four have almost become legend at this point, with extensive reshoots, heavy-handed studio interference and frequent reports of bizarre behavior on Trank’s part all combining to create one of the worst comic book blockbusters ever made, which also tanked spectacularly at the box office and ultimately cost the filmmaker his chance of directing a Star Wars movie.
However, Trank’s plan to rehabilitate his career officially begins in little over a week with the release of biopic Capone, starring Tom Hardy in the lead role. Shooting initially finished almost two years ago before the project sat on the shelf for a while, and it was recently re-branded from original title Fonzo and picked up by Vertical Entertainment to be distributed straight to digital, with any chance of a theatrical release being slammed shut by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The official poster has now been debuted though and you can check out how the one-sheet teases the title character’s descent into madness below. It’s an effective piece of marketing, no doubt, and only has us that much more eager to see the film.
Of course, Tom Hardy is always good value for money in any project, and a lot of people will no doubt be checking out Capone just to see the latest addition to his collection of strange accents, but the crime saga also marks a make-or-break movie for Trank, who could either see himself taking steps to be released from Director’s Jail, or have his sentence extended indefinitely depending on what the critical consensus is.