The Current War: latest trailer for Benedict Cumberbatch film rescued after two years in limbo

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Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon star in The Current War, that’s escaped from a Weinstein Company contract and will land in cinemas this summer.

It’s been the best part of two years that The Current War has been sat on the shelves. The movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon, with the pair playing Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. The film examines the battle between the pair of them to see whose electricity system would become popular, and become the one that the world would adopt.

The film was initially set to be released in 2017, having been directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (who made the excellent Me And Earl And The Dying Girl). A version of the movie did once upon a time premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, to mixed notices. But then the movie got caught up in the scandal surrounding Harvey Weinstein, with The Current War at one stage posited as The Weinstein Company’s big awards film of 2017.

When The Weinstein Company went bankrupt, Gomez-Rejon was eventually able to get his film back, thanks of all things to a piece of administration. Producer Martin Scorsese hadn’t signed off on the contract with The Weinstein Company, and this meant that Gomez-Rejon could recut the film – which he now has done – without having to cede to the demands of the Weinsteins.

A new cut of the film has thus been done, and is said to be very different from the version that premiered all that time back in Toronto. It’s ten minutes shorter, and that’s even factoring in that five new scenes were shot for the movie.

101 Studios has now snapped up the rights to the film, and will be releasing it in US cinemas this August. In the UK, Entertainment has picked the movie up for release and we’re actually getting it first. It’s due in UK cinemas on July 26th, and here’s the brand new trailer for the film…

And here’s the first trailer, from mid-May…

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