{"id":482235,"date":"2026-06-17T17:47:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T17:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/482235\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T17:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T17:47:17","slug":"sean-penn-to-direct-film-about-police-officer-at-jan-6-capitol-riot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/482235\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Penn To Direct Film About Police Officer At Jan. 6 Capitol Riot"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Sean Penn<\/a> will direct a movie about a police officer who was at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot<\/a> in 2021, Warner Bros. announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Following his Oscar-winning performance in \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d<\/a> Penn will direct the as-yet untitled film from his own script. Bradley Cooper<\/a> is in talks to star, though no deal has been finalized.<\/p>\n

Representatives for Penn and Warner Bros. didn\u2019t comment Tuesday on the movie\u2019s protagonist but said he\u2019s based on a real person.<\/p>\n

When Penn attended the 2022 hearings<\/a> of the House Select Committee investigating the deadly attack on the Capitol, he sat between Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges, both of whom responded to the attacks.<\/p>\n

Fanone testified<\/a> that he rushed to the scene and was \u201cgrabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country.\u201d The assault, which stopped only when he said he had children, caused him to have a heart attack. Hodges also testified about his harrowing experience.<\/p>\n

At the hearings, Penn said he was attending as \u201cjust another citizen\u201d to observe and see if justice would be served.<\/p>\n

The film is described as being about \u201can unexpected friendship.\u201d Production is expected to start mid-2027.<\/p>\n

The movie\u2019s announcement comes just days after the U.S. Justice Department said<\/a> it will not challenge Paramount Skydance\u2019s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The $111 billion deal, agreed to in February, will put the Warner Bros. film studio under the control of David Ellison<\/a>, Paramount\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n

Ellison and his father, the Oracle founder Larry Ellison<\/a>, have strong ties to President Donald Trump<\/a>. On Sunday, Ellison attended the Ultimate Fighting Championship event<\/a> at the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d hailed as a timely political film<\/a>, won best picture at the Academy Awards<\/a> in March. Penn won his third Oscar<\/a> for his racist military zealot Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, but skipped the ceremony to instead visit Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Sean Penn will direct a movie about a police officer who was at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[16902,430,156,242260,111,139,69,26870,15185,5942,15758],"class_list":["post-482235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bradley-cooper","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-house-select-committee","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-one-battle-after-another","tag-sean-penn","tag-warner-bros","tag-washington-dc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}