LOS ANGELES & SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb. 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CBS Films and Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) announced that Academy Award®-winner J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, Zootopia) will join Academy Award-nominee Mark Wahlberg (The Departed, Lone Survivor) in PATRIOTS DAY. The film will be directed by Peter Berg (Deepwater Horizon, Lone Survivor) and produced by Scott Stuber, Mark Wahlberg, Hutch Parker, Dylan Clark, Stephen Levinson and Michael Radutzky.
PATRIOTS DAY chronicles the events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. Simmons will play Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese of the Watertown Police Department who distinguished himself in combat with Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Wahlberg will play a composite Boston Police Department officer who is central to the investigation and manhunt.
"Beyond his considerable talents, J.K. Simmons is a person who respects the solemn trust that these real life heroes are putting in our hands," commented Berg, who continued. "This is an actor who will represent the role in the best way possible."
PATRIOTS DAY will be co-financed by CBS Films and Lionsgate with the former handling production and marketing and the latter handling distribution.
J.K. Simmons is represented by Stephen Hirsh at Gersh Agency. The film will begin production in Boston next month.
ABOUT CBS FILMS
CBS Films is a division of CBS Corporation. The division develops, finances, acquires, produces and releases theatrical feature films spanning all genres. For more information, log on to www.cbsfilms.com.
ABOUT LIONSGATE
Lionsgate is a premier next generation global content leader with a strong and diversified presence in motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication, home entertainment, digital distribution, new channel platforms, video games and international distribution and sales. The Company has nearly 80 television shows on 40 different networks spanning its primetime production, distribution and syndication businesses. These include the critically-acclaimed hit series Orange is the New Black, the multiple Emmy Award-winning drama Mad Men, the hit broadcast network series Nashville, the syndication successes The Wendy Williams Show and Celebrity Name Game (with FremantleMedia), the breakout series The Royals and the Golden Globe-nominated dramedy Casual.
Its feature film business has been fueled by such successes as the blockbuster Hunger Games franchise, the first two installments of the Divergent franchise, Sicario, The Age of Adaline, CBS/Lionsgate's The DUFF, John Wick, Now You See Me, Roadside Attractions' Love & Mercy and Mr. Holmes, Lionsgate/Codeblack Films' Addicted and Pantelion Films' Instructions Not Included, the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the U.S.
Lionsgate's home entertainment business is an industry leader in box office-to-DVD and box office-to-VOD revenue conversion rates. Lionsgate handles a prestigious and prolific library of approximately 16,000 motion picture and television titles that is an important source of recurring revenue and serves as the foundation for the growth of the Company's core businesses. The Lionsgate and Summit brands remain synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world. www.lionsgate.com
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SOURCE CBS Films
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