Cillian Murphy is set to star in and produce in an adaptation of Mark A. Bradley’s “Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America,” according to a report in Deadline.
The new film “will be scripted as a starring and producing vehicle for Murphy,” Deadline reports.
Universal Pictures, the studio behind the Oscar-winning blockbuster “Oppenheimer,” completed a pre-emptive acquisition for the project two days before this year’s Oscars which saw Murphy scoop the Best Actor prize.
A synopsis of Bradley’s book “Blood Runs Coal” says: “In the early hours of New Year’s Eve 1969, in the small soft coal mining borough of Clarksville, Pennsylvania, longtime trade union insider Joseph 'Jock' Yablonski and his wife and daughter were brutally murdered in their old stone farmhouse.
"Behind the assassination was the corrupt president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), Tony Boyle, who had long embezzled UMWA funds, silenced intra-union dissent, and served the interests of Big Coal companies—and would do anything to maintain power.
"The most infamous crimes in the history of American labor unions, the Yablonski murders catalyzed the first successful rank-and-file takeover of a major labor union in modern US history.
"'Blood Runs Coal' is an extraordinary portrait of one of the nation’s major unions on the brink of historical change.”
Murphy will play Chip Yablonski and will also produce alongside Alan Moloney through Big Things Films.
John Davis and Jordan Davis will produce through Davis Entertainment, and Bradley will be executive producer.
This isn't Murphy's first book-to-screen adaptation. He recently starred in and produced "Small Things Like These," adapted from Irish author Claire Keegan's Booker Prize-nominated novel of the same name.
The book and film take "place over Christmas in 1985, when devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong (Murphy) discovers startling secrets kept by the convent in his town, along with some shocking truths of his own.
"The film reveals truths about Ireland's Magdalene laundries — horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996, ostensibly to reform 'fallen young women.'"
"Small Things Like These," which was filmed in Ireland and co-stars Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley, Emily Watson, and Clare Dunne, opened the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival where it was also in competition.
Watson won the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the prestigious film festival.
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