The latest trailer for Trumbo was released this week, showing more of Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter blacklisted in the late 1940s. The biopic will focus on the prolific writer’s fight against the U.S. government and Hollywood execs after the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began to investigate his ties to the Communist Party.
The trailer starts off with Trumbo’s enormous success, but he’s soon knocked down when the investigation begins and he’s blacklisted after refusing to cooperate. Nonetheless, he’s shown continuing to write, even without being able to attach his name to projects, and worse, at the risk of further trouble. “We should all be prepared to go to prison,” he says.
The preview also highlights Trumbo’s family and how much he has at stake if he’s caught. Still, he resists the idea of the government being able to control his work and defiantly churns out more scripts, like Roman Holiday, a film he didn’t receive full credit for until 2011, almost 60 years after he penned it. The trailer shows him sitting in a theater, blending in with fellow moviegoers who have no idea he wrote it.
Unfortunately, the real-life aftermath of the investigation for Trumbo wasn’t simply having to let others take credit for his work. He ended up being convicted for contempt of Congress and sentenced to 11 months in prison. His name remained on the blacklist until it died out around 1960.
Trumbo‘s compelling plot is coupled with an impressive cast. Helen Mirren, John Goodman, Diane Lane, Louis C.K., Michael Stuhlbarg, and Elle Fanning all star. The cast also includes Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, David James Elliott, and Alan Tudyk. John McNamara wrote the biopic’s screenplay and Jay Roach directed.
Trumbo opens in theaters on Nov. 6.
