Here’s the trailer for William Friedkin’s final film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

Two months after the director’s death, William Friedkin’s final film will have its day in court. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, the last movie directed by Friedkin, will debut on Paramount+ and Showtime in early October.

Based on the 1954 play by Herman Wouk, who adapted it for the stage from his 1951 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the movie follows court-martialed Lt. Steve Maryk (Jake Lacey), who stands accused of mutiny after relieving his mentally unstable commanding officer, Lt. Queeg (Kiefer Sutherland), of duty. But the trailer is teeming with actors putting on a clinic. In addition to Lacey and Sutherland, Patrick Clarke, still in Oppenheimer mode, turns up as Barney Greenwald, Maryk’s skeptical defense attorney, and the late Lance Reddick in one of his final screen roles.

“The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is a film that I have long awaited to make, originally written by one of the masters of his time, Herman Wouk. I knew that I wanted to create a highly tense, pressurized scenario which would move rapidly along like a bat out of hell,” he wrote in his Venice Film Festival director’s statement. “I intentionally chose to keep the issue of right and wrong as ambiguous as possible. I was consistently impressed with the level of expertise that our actors brought to their roles and I believe that these are some of the best performances I have ever seen.”

Production on The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial began in January 2023. At the film’s Venice Film Festival premiere, held a month after Friedkin’s August 7th death, producer Annabelle Dunne revealed the “state secret” that Guillermo Del Toro served as a contractually-mandated back-up director for Friedkin due to his age because “Hollywood is ageist.” Dunn recalled raising the issue with Friedkin, who told her he needed to consider it. The next day, Friedkin called her and said, “Ok, honey, I have the guy. Get a pen: It’s Guillermo Del Toro, you got that?” Del Toro, busy promoting his Oscar-winning Pinocchio at the time, told Dunne, “I am going to come to set every single day and sit next to you.”

“It was a joy for all of us, including the actors, to have his presence there,” she said. “He made it abundantly clear it was Billy’s movie. He said he was our mascot.”

Following Friedkin’s death, Del Toro wrote of his experience on set with Friedkin and how masterfully he worked. The production was short on time, so Friedkin expected everyone to be off-book by the time cameras rolled. Friedkin, del Toro says, “rarely did more than one” take, but when an actor hit a bump in a long monologue, “the set grew tense.” Friedkin, known for his temper, calmed the actor and got things back on track.

“The business tends to enthrone the rough and blustery gestures, but here we had a master – one loved by cast and crew, knowingly and wisely turning a checkmate into a victory solely with gentle empathy: he knew,” del Toro wrote. “Great men are rare. Good men are even more so. I am grateful to have met Billy and to have shared many an evening with him and Sherry and my Kim. He has barely left, and I already miss him horribly.”

William Friedkin’s The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial will stream on Showtime and Paramount+ on October 6 and air on Showtime on October 8.