Was STATE OF PLAY End Of An Era?

An interesting viewpoint from an article in Deadline (via Dark Horizons) has cropped up today regarding State of Play. The 2003 BBC mini-series was an award-winning critical smash.

When a young female researcher working for politician Stephen Collins (David Morrissey) is killed on the London Underground, journalist Cal McCaffrey (John Simm) and his editor Cameron Foster (Bill Nighy) investigate and stumble into a complex web of links between government and the oil industry.

James McAvoy, Polly Walker, Tom Burke, Philip Glenister, Benedict Wong, and Kelly Macdonald all co-starred, with Nighy winning a best actor BAFTA.

So, of course, it was ripe for a US remake. This version was set up at Universal, featuring Ben Affleck as Collins, Russell Crowe as McCaffrey, and Helen Mirren as the editor. This let the oil industry go, and instead focused on American privatized military contractors.

There were some issues from the start. The first writer, Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom, Deepwater Horizon) had to leave the project due to a personal matter. Tony Gilroy (Andor), Peter Morgan (The Queen), and Billy Ray (Shattered Glass) all did polishes.

State Of Play was a box office failure, grossing just $88.8 million worldwide from a $60 million budget.

The director, Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) appeared at the Edinburgh Film Festival over the weekend, and he spoke about the movie:

“I didn’t realize at the time, but looking back, that was a pivotal film in Hollywood, as well as for me, because it was sort of the end [of an era]. Donna Langley mentioned it too when she did Desert Island Discs. It was a turning point movie for her at Universal and the rest of Hollywood because it was conceived as an all-star, intelligent thriller for adults at $100 million. Can you imagine that today?”

He went on to refer to the project as the:

“…tail end of a certain kind of wasteful Hollywood filmmaking…”

MacDonald’s next project is The Runner, starring Gal Gadot. Both versions of State of Play are available on various streaming services if you know where to look.

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