Spacey is expected to play one of Salinger’s mentors, with Mad Max: Fury Road and X-Men franchise actor Nicholas Hoult portraying the reclusive novelist. The film will be based on Kenneth Slawenski’s 2012 biography of Salinger titled J.D. Salinger: A Life.
As initially reported by Deadline, Spacey’s role will be that of Story magazine editor and Columbia professor Whit Burnett, who served as one of Salinger’s primary mentors during his early years and then later throughout much of his life.
Directed by Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Empire television series creator Danny Strong, Rebel in the Rye will explore Salinger’s life from his early, rebellious youth through his service in World War II, the publication of Catcher in the Rye (and the ensuing fame that brought with it), and the self-imposed seclusion that he became known for later in life. The film will be the second feature based on Salinger to go into production since the author’s death in 2010, after director Shane Salerno’s documentary Salinger was released in 2013.
Rebel in the Rye will reunite Spacey with Oscar-winning American Beauty producer Bruce Cohen, one of several primary producers on the film.
While there’s no word on when production will begin on Rebel in the Rye, Spacey can soon be seen in the fourth season of House of Cards, which will premiere in March, as well as in the upcoming film Elvis & Nixon, in which he plays former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon in a film dramatizing the 1970 meeting between Nixon and Elvis Presley at the White House. He’ll also appear in Edgar Wright’s upcoming heist comedy Baby Driver.
