Tom Riley's name has been added to the cast list on IMDb for feature film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Tom's character is listed as Lieutenant Willis Keith. I haven't been able to find an official announcement anywhere, but it seems that the film started filming in January 2023, and is now in post-production. It may be submitted to festivals before being streamed on Showtime / Paramount later this year, according to the LA Times.
There have been 2 Deadline articles announcing the film and casting updates here and here. William Friedkin has directed The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial from a novel by Herman Wouk. The film stars Kiefer Sutherland, and very sadly, one of the other cast members Lance Reddick died suddenly last week. Deadline have provided more details about the film and an interview with William Friedkin.
“I’ve looked at a lot of scripts in the last 10 years, and I haven’t seen anything I really wanted to do,” said Friedkin, who most recently directed 2011’s stylish noir drama Killer Joe starring Matthew McConaughey.
“But I think about it a lot, and it occurred to me that could be a very timely and important piece, as well as being great drama. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is one of the best court-martial dramas ever written.”
The original novel, the 1954 film with Humphrey Bogart as Queeg and a Robert Altman-directed 1988 telepic of the play that starred Midnight Run‘s Brad Davis as Queeg were set during World War II. A naval officer stands trial for mutiny for taking command from a ship captain he feels is acting in unstable fashion, endangering both the ship and its crew.
“The original piece was written for WWII, and Wouk included all the pent-up anger in this country over Pearl Harbor,” Friedkin told Deadline. “I’ve updated it so that is no longer Pearl Harbor. I’ve made it contemporary, involving the Gulf of Hormuz and the Straits of Hormuz, leading to Iran.”
Hormuz provides the only passage between the Persian Gulf and the open sea, making it a critical shipping route that long has been a hotspot because of continuing tensions with Iran. The update was made easier in that even the original was an invention of the late author, who also wrote The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.
“There never was a mutiny in the United States Navy,” Friedkin said. “Herman Wouk virtually created the first and only mutiny in the United States military. His dialogue is terrific, right to the point. It’s set at a trial, but it’s all really by the book, in terms of accuracy. But there never was a mutiny in the United States military. He invented it and all that would take place around it, based on the laws that cover it.”
Friedkin altered Wouk’s script himself to reflect a timelier timeline.
