First Poster For Bennett Miller’s FOXCATCHER Stars Channing Tatum

Sony Pictures Classics has released the first teaser poster from director Bennett Miller’s upcoming film FOXCATCHER, starring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Anthony Michael Hall, Vanessa Redgrave and Mark Ruffalo. (via People.com)

Based on true events, FOXCATCHER tells the dark and fascinating story of the unlikely and ultimately tragic relationship between an eccentric multi-millionaire and two champion wrestlers.

Miller won Best Director in May at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. The film is written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman.

Ramin Setoodeh (Variety) said “Carell gives one of the most transformative performances of the year” and the actor is “an Oscar lock.”

Todd McCarthy (The Hollywood Reporter) wrote,”Playing a young man who doesn’t have a clue how to articulate his feelings and suffers for it, Tatum is a smoldering, festering piece of emotional raw meat, able to be manipulated this way and that by his benefactor. You feel his pain.”

When Olympic Gold Medal winning wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) is invited by wealthy heir John du Pont (Steve Carell) to move on to the du Pont estate and help form a team to train for the 1988 Seoul Olympics at his new state-of-the-art training facility, Schultz jumps at the opportunity, hoping to focus on his training and finally step out of the shadow of his revered brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo). Driven by hidden needs, du Pont sees backing Schultz’s bid for Gold and the chance to “coach” a world-class wrestling team as an opportunity to gain the elusive respect of his peers and, more importantly, his disapproving mother (Vanessa Redgrave).

Flattered by the attention and entranced by du Pont’s majestic world, Mark comes to see his benefactor as a father figure and grows increasingly dependent on him for approval. Though initially supportive, du Pont’s mercurial personality turns and he begins to lure Mark into an unhealthy lifestyle that threatens to undermine his training. Soon du Pont’s erratic behavior and cruel psychological game-play begin to erode the athlete’s already shaky self-esteem.

Meanwhile du Pont becomes fixated on Dave, who exudes the confidence both he and Mark lack, knowing that these are things even his money cannot buy. Fueled by du Pont’s increasing paranoia and alienation from the brothers, the trio is propelled towards a tragedy no one could have foreseen.

FOXCATCHER is a rich and moving story of brotherly love, misguided loyalty and the corruption and emotional bankruptcy that can accompany great power and wealth.

As with Academy Award nominee Bennett Miller’s previous feature films, CAPOTE and MONEYBALL, he explores large themes in society through his complex character portraits of real people.

Tatum was the only one of the three lead actors who had to act in front of the person he was playing. “It was hard for Mark to watch and to have a real perspective on the movie because he only has what happened in real life to go from,” says Tatum. “Having him there was unbelievably helpful at times, in terms of the information that was given, but then other times it was definitely confusing trying to separate Mark’s real life emotions with what my job was to play him in the film.” (The real Mark Schultz has a cameo in the film).

Miller was able to work in such a free approach because he had the full backing of his producer, Megan Ellison and Annapurna Pictures. While Annapurna Pictures has since become known for such acclaimed films as THE MASTER, ZERO DARK THIRTY, HER, and AMERICAN HUSTLE, FOXCATCHER was in fact one of the first projects they took on.

Says Miller: “Making a film like this, which is not a predetermined, connect-the-dots, color-within-the-lines  kind of thing, requires a leap of faith on the part of the producers and the actors. It’s almost like going into a documentary, where you don’t know exactly what form it will take when it’s finished, but the only way for the film to become what it needs to become is to go into it with a question mark.”

FOXCATCHER opens in theaters on November 14, 2014.

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Photos by Scott Garfield, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.