John Lee Hancock, the director behind the Academy Award-winning The Blindside, is planning to tell the story of McDonalds with a new film, The Founder. The Hollywood Reporter has the news, bringing word that Hancock will work from a screenplay by Big Fan and The Wrestler scribe Robert Siegel with FilmNation producing alongside Don Handfield and Jeremy Renner’s The Combine.
The Founder, likened in the trade to both David Fincher’s The Social Network and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, will tell the story of how a salesman named Ray Kroc teamed with two brothers, Richard and Maurice “Mac” McDonald, to launch what would soon become an international fast food chain that now serves 68 million customers every day.
Variety, meanwhile, reports that Tom Hanks was previously approached for the Kroc role, but turned it down. Although that could change now that Hancock has come aboard, Michael Keaton is also listed as someone who has been interested in the part.
Hancock most recently helmed Saving Mr. Banks with Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson. Although he didn’t direct it, Hancock also worked on the screenplays to both Snow White and the Huntsman and the upcoming remake of The Magnificent Seven. The latter film is set to be directed by Antoine Fuqua with Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt both rumored to star.
