Richard Jewell (film)

In 1986 in Atlanta, Georgia, Richard Jewell is working as an office supply clerk at the Small Business Administration, where he builds a rapport with attorney Watson Bryant before leaving to pursue a law enforcement career. He is hired as a sheriff's deputy, but is discharged, and by early 1996 is working as a security guard at Piedmont College. He is fired from this position after multiple complaints of acting beyond his jurisdiction and moves in with his mother, Bobi. That summer, he is able to find work as a security guard at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, monitoring Centennial Park.

Early in the morning on July 27, 1996, after chasing off some drunken teens during a Jack Mack and the Heart Attack concert, Jewell notices a stray backpack beneath a bench. Much to the annoyance of his coworkers, he insists proper protocol be followed, but an explosives expert discovers the backpack contains a bomb. The security team is still working to move concert attendees away from the bomb when it detonates, and, though there are many injuries and one fatality, Jewell is heralded as a hero, as his vigilance is believed to have saved many lives.

The dean of Piedmont College contacts the FBI to raise suspicions about Jewell, and, after looking into him, FBI agent Tom Shaw and his team determine that Jewell, as a white, male, "wanna-be" police officer, fits the profile of someone who might seek glory and attention by creating a dangerous situation so they can come to the rescue. Shaw is approached by journalist Kathy Scruggs of The Atlanta Journal, and, in exchange for the promise of sexual favors, he reveals Jewell is a suspect in the bombing. The Journal publishes Scruggs' story on the front page, and the media narrative about Jewell immediately shifts from laudatory to critical.

Before Jewell learns he is a suspect, Shaw lures him to the FBI office. Though initially cooperative, he becomes suspicious when asked to sign an acknowledgement that he has been read his Miranda rights and phones Bryant, who he had just contacted to handle a proposed book deal. Bryant, now running his own struggling law firm, agrees to represent Jewell.

After a disastrous The Today Show interview, and still not completely convinced of Jewell's innocence, Bryant and his secretary, Nadya, time how long it takes to travel the distance between the phone booth used to make a bomb threat shortly before the explosion and Centennial Park. Concluding it was impossible for Jewell to both make the threat and discover the bomb when he did, Bryant becomes determined to keep Jewell from getting "railroaded".

The FBI searches Jewell's home and seizes property, including his mother's Tupperware, his true crime books, and a cache of firearms. Jewell admits to Bryant that he has not paid income tax for years and was once arrested for exceeding his authority. Bryant scolds Jewell for being too collegial with the investigators, and Jewell says his ingrained respect for authority makes it difficult for him not to be deferential.

Bryant arranges a polygraph examination, which Jewell passes. Scruggs, though initially brash and confident in her reporting, is troubled to learn the FBI have begun to look for someone who may have called in the bomb threat for Jewell, since having an accomplice would not fit the "lone bomber" profile. Bobi holds a press conference at which she pleads for the FBI to announce Jewell is no longer a suspect so they may proceed with their lives. Finally, Jewell and Bryant meet with Shaw and, after several irrelevant questions, Jewell pointedly asks if he is going to be charged. Met with silence, he leaves. Eighty-eight days after being named a "person of interest", Jewell is informed by formal letter that he is no longer under investigation.

In April 2003, Jewell, now a police officer in Luthersville, Georgia, is visited by Bryant, who tells him that Eric Rudolph has been captured and confessed to the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

An epilogue states that, on August 29, 2007, Jewell died at age 44 of complications from diabetes and heart failure. Bryant and Nadya got married, and Bobi babysits their two sons on Saturday nights.

The film was initially announced in February 2014, when Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill teamed to produce the film, with Hill set to play Jewell, and DiCaprio set to play the lawyer who helped Jewell navigate the media blitz that surrounded him.^[14] Paul Greengrass began negotiations to direct the film, with Billy Ray writing the screenplay.^[15] Other directors considered include Ezra Edelman (known for the 2016 documentary O.J.: Made in America) and David O. Russell,^[16][17] before Clint Eastwood was officially attached in early 2019. DiCaprio and Hill did not end up acting in the film, though they remained as producers.^[18]

In May 2019, Warner Bros. acquired the project from 20th Century Fox, which had been acquired by The Walt Disney Company earlier that year.^[19] In June, Sam Rockwell was cast as the lawyer, and Paul Walter Hauser as Jewell. Kathy Bates, Olivia Wilde, Jon Hamm, and Ian Gomez were also cast.^{[20][21][22][23][24]} Nina Arianda joined the cast in July.^[25] Filming began on June 24, 2019, in Atlanta.^[26]

In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show, Eastwood explained how he continued to work on the film despite a wildfire near the studio.^[27] DeGeneres described the November 10 blaze, known as the Barham Brush Fire, as a "really bad fire that came really close to the lot," adding that "air quality was so bad that everyone evacuated." Eastwood replied: "I was coming back down to do some work at a sound stage and I saw all this smoke going. And I'm getting closer and closer and its Warner Bros. and its smoke and I got almost up there and I thought, the whole studio's burning down, maybe I'll go in and see if I can retrieve something. So we went on the sound stage and started working and we forgot about it and...everybody said, 'The studio's been evacuated!' And I said, 'We're not evacuated, we're here working!'"^[28]

A trailer for the film was released on October 3, 2019,^[29] and the film premiered at AFI Fest on November 20,^[30] before being theatrically released in the United States on December 13 by Warner Bros. Pictures.^[31]

Richard Jewell grossed $22.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $22.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide box office total of $44.6 million,^[3][4] against a production budget of $45 million.^[2] Its performance was characterized as a box office flop by several media outlets.^{[32][33][34][35]}

In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside Jumanji: The Next Level and Black Christmas, and was initially projected to gross around $10 million from 2,502 theaters over its opening weekend.^[36] However, after making $1.6 million on its first day, weekend estimates were lowered to $5 million,^[2] and it ended up earning $4.7 million, one of the 50 worst wide openings ever.^[37] It was Eastwood's worst opening weekend since Bronco Billy in 1980, and the second-lowest opening of his career.^[38] The film finished fourth at the box office, behind Jumanji: The Next Level, Frozen II, and Knives Out.^[39][40]

Its second weekend, the film fell 45% to $2.6 million, finishing in seventh place at the box office,^[41] and its third weekend, it made $3 million (and a total of $5.4 million over the five-day Christmas weekend), finishing tenth.^[42]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 77% of 301 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 6.8/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Richard Jewell simplifies the real-life events that inspired it—yet still proves that Clint Eastwood remains a skilled filmmaker of admirable economy."^[43] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on reviews from 45 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[44] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.^[2]

The film came under fire for its portrayal of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs, who had died of a prescription drug overdose in 2001.^[45] Criticism was directed at the film for depicting her as offering to engage in sex with an FBI agent in return for confidential information.^[46] The editor-in-chief of the AJC wrote in an open letter stating that this depicted incident was "entirely false and malicious".^[47] Employees of the newspaper demanded the film have a prominent disclaimer that "some events were imagined for dramatic purposes and artistic license."^[48][49] Critical commentators argued that the film perpetuates a sexist trope of women journalists exchanging sex for information.^[50][51]

Olivia Wilde, who plays Scruggs in the film, defended her role and stated there was a sexist double standard, in that Jon Hamm's portrayal of the FBI agent was not held to the same scrutiny.^[52] In response, it was argued that Wilde's character was based on a real person, whereas the FBI agent was an amalgamation of multiple individuals,^[52] and that, while the purpose of the film was to expose and condemn the character assassination of Jewell, in the process, it committed the same act against Scruggs.^[50][53]

• Richard Jewell at IMDb  
• Richard Jewell at AllMovie  
• Richard Jewel at History vs. Hollywood