Russell Crowe will star alongside Jacob Tremblay and Shailene Woodley in the upcoming Netflix film Unabom.
Unabom, which is currently in production, is a new thriller about the domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski. Janus Metz directs the film, which will star Tremblay as a young Kaczynski and Crowe as controversial Harvard professor Henry Murray.
The film follows the transformation of Kaczynski from Harvard prodigy to the infamous Unabomber. After he’s “subjected to controversial psychological experiments by Professor Henry Murray, Kaczynski’s troubled past resurfaces decades later,” according to Netflix.
Woodley will play FBI agent Joanne Miller, who led the manhunt for Kaczynski, while Annabelle Wallis will play Christina Morgan, Murray’s academic partner and the co-director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic.
The film’s title comes from the FBI’s code name for the Kaczynski case, which was Unabom, standing for UNiversity and Airline BOMbing.
Metz told Netflix he was fascinated by how the hunt for the Unabomber “was the FBI’s longest and most expensive operation to date.”
“But what really drew me in was the story about Ted Kaczynski’s years at Harvard when he was a young math student. This was a side to the story I didn’t know about; it helps uncover a very dark chapter in American history,” Metz said.
The choice to select Tremblay to play Kaczynski came after the pair had their first conversation.
“Jacob Tremblay is an immensely talented young actor,” Metz said. “He has a sensitivity that feels perfect for my vision of Ted when he was a young student at Harvard. There’s a vulnerability and intelligence to Jacob’s look and performance that this story needs.”
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