Jake Gyllenhaal is teaming with Conde Nast Entertainment to produce the true-crime film Gilded Rage, which will be based on a series of Vanity Fair articles from April 2015 by investigative reporter Benjamin Wallace, Collider has exclusively learned.
Charlie McDowell (The One I Love) is set to write and direct the movie, which Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker will produce via their Nine Stories banner along with Jeremy Steckler of CNE. The producers are aiming to start production later this year in New York, but that will depend on casting, of course.
It's unclear whether Gyllenhaal himself would star in the film, but if I had to wager a guess, I'd say he'll stay behind the camera for this one, though the story is certainly intriguing. It's based on a true crime -- the infamous murder of Thomas Gilbert Sr. by his son, Thomas Gilbert Jr.
The elder Gilbert was a wealthy investment banker, so his son was born with a silver spoon and "raised in an environment of extreme privilege," per Vanity Fair. The young man was 6'3" with blonde hair, blue eyes and a Princeton education, though it took him six years to graduate. He had a strained relationship with his father, whom he thought of as mean and controlling. The younger Gilbert felt like nothing he ever did was good enough for his father, whom he worried would cut him off. Consumed by family dysfunction and financial anxiety, he began to spiral, and it wasn't long before he was arrested for violating an order of protection filed by an old friend and former roommate, whose home burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances.
A few months later, police would find Gilbert's father dead of a gunshot wound to the head, a gun still in his hand. Even though it looked like a suicide to the untrained eye, police strongly suspected Gilbert Jr. and arrested him, finding hollow-point bullets, handcuffs and 21 blank credit cards in the process. He eventually pled not guilty to second-degree murder and has resisted subsequent plea deals, while his mother is footing the bill for his defense, which continues to this day. I could certainly see that making for one hell of a movie, that's for sure!
Gyllenhaal recently starred in Dan Gilroy's Netflix movie Velvet Buzzsaw, Paul Dano's directorial debut Wildlife and Jacques Audiard's English-language debut The Sisters Brothers. He next stars as Mysterio opposite Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Gyllenhaal will also be seen on Broadway in Sea Wall / A Life, which opens at the Hudson Theater on July 26 and was also produced by Nine Stories.
On the feature side, Nine Stories is developing Helicopter Heist at Netflix, for whom Gyllenhaal and Marker are also producing Antonio Campos' star-studded thriller The Devil All the Time. The company is also developing an English-language remake of The Guilty, an adaptation of Tom Clancy's video game The Division, and Tate Taylor's Breaking News in Yuba County. Gyllenhaal is represented by WME and Goodman Schenkman & Brecheen.
McDowell burst on the scene with The One I Love starring Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss, and followed that by writing and directing The Discovery starring Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, and Robert Redford. He most recently served as a director and executive producer on Kirsten Dunst's upcoming YouTube Premium series On Becoming a God in Central Florida. He's repped by ICM Partners and Independent Talent Group.
