Ron Howard has set up his next film, “Alone at Dawn,” an adaptation of the nonfiction book by Dan Schilling and Lori Longfritz. It’s set to start production on November 10.
Adam Driver and Anne Hathaway have now been confirmed as the leads in Howard’s upcoming film. Driver, a former Marine and Oscar-nominated actor, has finally found a military-themed project that feels like a full-circle moment in his career.
Hathaway and Driver were originally set to star together in James Gray’s “Paper Tiger,” but Hathaway had to step away due to scheduling conflicts. Driver remained attached and filmed the project earlier this spring. Meanwhile, and impressively, “Alone at Dawn” marks Hathaway’s fourth film of 2025, following “Verity,” “The Odyssey,” and “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
“Alone at Dawn” follows John Chapman, an Air Force combat controller who gave his life during the War in Afghanistan while saving 23 fellow soldiers — a sacrifice that earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor. It's a story that, tonally, might be in the same vein as Peter Berg’s underrated “Lone Survivor.”
The screenplay was written by TV veteran Michael Russell Gunn (“The Newsroom”), with earlier drafts contributed by Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) and Amy Herzog (“Scenes From A Marriage”).
As for Howard, “Alone at Dawn” comes after his struggles to find a distributor with his last film, “Eden,” which was finally theatrically distributed by Vertical this past August, and only three years after Amazon/MGM dumped his well-received “Thirteen Lives" to streaming on Prime Video.
Howard, who wowed Oscar voters with “Apollo 13,” “A Beautiful Mind,” and “Frost/Nixon,” hasn’t had a critical or commercial hit since 2013’s “Rush.” Has his stock crumbled? Not quite yet. Teaming up with Driver and Hathawsy is a big deal for him, and he also has that Glen Powell-starring firefighter movie currently in development.