EARLIER: How odd that PEOPLE Magazine has the exclusive trailer for Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2.” It can’t be found anywhere else online. They can’t be possibly burying this film, right?
EDITOR’S NOTE: A little under two hours later, Warner Bros has finally posted the trailer on their YouTube channel.
It doesn’t help that Warner Bros. has given Eastwood’s film a limited November 1 theatrical bow, in very select theaters, and hasn’t announced any plans to expand it into wider release. What gives? Is Warners’ confidence that low on this film?
The trailer doesn’t make it look like a train wreck at all. In fact, it already looks like an improvement on Eastwood’s last film, 2021’s misbegotten “Cry Macho.” Will it match the quality of latter-day Eastwoods such as “Richard Jewell” and “The Mule”? For the time being, “Juror #2” is supposed to have its world premiere at AFI Fest on October 27.
Juror #2 stars Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Kiefer Sutherland, JK Simmons, Chris Messina, Zoey Deutch, Gabriel Basso and Leslie Bibb. The film is set during a murder trial where one of the jurors, a “family man,” slowly realizes he killed the victim in a reckless-driving accident and tries to save the defendant without incriminating himself.
Eastwood, 94, tells PEOPLE in a statement, "This is a film I would want to see, that I think a lot of people would enjoy. It looks at the gray areas between the black and white of everyday circumstances and makes you decide for yourself."
The director adds that it started with a "good script" by Jonathan Abrams and a "solid story that I thought would make a good picture." He adds, "It really intrigues me when a story places a character in a moral dilemma, and this is one that we could all imagine ourselves in or relate to in some way."
Last year, THR reported that Eastwood “wanted to find one last project in order to be able to ride off into the sunset with his head held high.” He found the script for “Juror No. 2” and said this is “the one.” The film is being called Eastwood’s “final film,” but there’s been no firm indication that it would indeed be the legendary filmmaker’s last hurrah.