Seth Rogen is best known for starring in stoner comedies and having a divisive laugh, but he’s going to give drama another try for Newsflash, a new film written by Ben Jacoby and directed by David Gordon Green. Rogen will be playing iconic newsman Walter Cronkite, with the story taking place on November 22, 1963, as Cronkite and the rest of the CBS newsroom try to put together accurate information on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This comes from Deadline, which notes that NBC was the first TV network to report on the president being shot, but Cronkite’s broadcast that day made him a TV news star of sorts.
Along with Cronkite, the story features his producer Don Hewitt, their boss Jim Aubrey, and a young hotshot reporter named Dan Rather who happened to be in Texas when Kennedy got shot. The filmmakers are reportedly “courting” Mark Ruffalo and Bryan Cranston to play Hewitt and Aubrey, but Rogen is the only one officially on board.