Deadline reports that Jeff Daniels and Billions star Paul Giamatti have closed deals to join WWII drama The Catcher Was a Spy.
They’ll buddy up with Ant-Man‘s Paul Rudd and Guy Pearce, who climbed on board to play military specialist Furman just last week. Daniels is attached to the role of O.S.S. Chief “Wild Bill” Donovan – commonly referred to as the “Father of Central Intelligence” long before the CIA was born – while Giamatti will portray a physicist known as Goudsmit. Leading the charge for this one is Rudd, who signed on to play Moe Berg early on in development. A multilingual pro baseball player, in his time away from the field, Berg secretly moonlighted as an agent for the Office of Strategic Services – hence the title – during the throes of World War II, accepting assignments all across the Caribbean, South America and even mainland Europe.
Adapted from Dawidoff’s biography, The Catcher Was A Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, Ben Lewin is at the helm for this one, directing from a script produced by Robert Rodat. Now that Jeff Daniels and Paul Giamatti have officially filled out the cast, production on Lewin’s period drama is expected to get underway in Prague this Monday coming (February 13th) ahead of an expected release in early 2018. Boston will also play host to The Catcher Was a Spy over the coming months.
Elsewhere, Jeff Daniels is coming off a brief appearance in Godless, and is one of the many stars still in negotiations to appear in the planned TV finale of The Divergent Series, which seems to have lost lead star Shailene Woodley. Giamatti, meanwhile, will continue to wage war on Damien Lewis’ aloof moneyman when Billions season 2 premieres on February 19th.