The Last Thing He Wanted

The Last Thing He Wanted (2020)

At the turning point of the Iran-Contra affair, Elena McMahon, a fearless investigative journalist covering the 1984 US presidential campaign, puts herself in danger when she abandons her assigned task in order to fulfill the last wish of her ailing father, a mysterious man whose past activities she barely knows.

Date of release
2020-02-14
TMDB
4.9 / 10 (550)
Runtime
1h 56m
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Director
Dee Rees

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Last Thing He Wanted

The Last Thing He Wanted is a 2020 political thriller film directed by Dee Rees, based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Joan Didion, from a screenplay by Rees and Marco Villalobos. The film stars Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Rosie Perez, Edi Gathegi, Mel Rodriguez, Toby Jones, and Willem Dafoe.

Production

Joan Didion's 1996 novel The Last Thing He Wanted was optioned by the producer Cassian Elwes in 2016. In September 2017, it was announced Dee Rees, who had previously worked with Elwes on the 2017 film Mudbound, would direct. Elwes produced the film, under his Elevated Films banner, with financing by Fyzz Facility. The film was executive produced by Jamin O'Brien, Wayne Godfrey, and Robert Jones.

The first draft of the script for The Last Thing He Wanted was written by Marco Villalobos, with Rees writing the second draft. She described the script as a difficult adaptation, as the novel is internally focused and told by an anonymous narrator.

Many of the changes from the original plot have been criticized by reviewers, including the addition of the scene where Schultz and Morrison discuss the assassination plot. Villalobos and Rees' choice to retain direct quotes from the novel – which come from the unnamed narrator who was cut in the film adaptation – was criticized in a review by the Associated Press as retaining the sense of detachment employed in the novel by Didion without explan…

In February 2018, Anne Hathaway joined the cast of the film. In June 2018, Willem Dafoe joined the cast of the film. In July 2018, Ben Affleck, Toby Jones, Rosie Perez, Edi Gathegi, Mel Rodriguez and Carlos Leal joined the cast of the film.

The film, with a budget of $100 million, began principal photography in June 2018 in Puerto Rico. Background extras were scouted for filming in Miami, Florida.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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