All the King's Men, 2006, Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet
All the King's Men (2006) is a film adaptation of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. It was directed by Steven Zaillian, who also produced and scripted the film. The story is about the life of Willie Stark (played by Sean Penn), a fictional character resembling Louisiana governor Huey Long.
All the King's Men had previously been adapted by Robert Rossen in 1949. Although it does not follow the 1949 film's narrative and is more faithful to the novel than the earlier movie, the 2006 film is often considered a remake of the 1949 version. According to IMDb writer /director Steven Zaillian never saw the original film, and adapted the screenplay solely from Robert Penn Warren's novel.
Filming took place in New Orleans, Morgan City, Donaldsonville, at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge and many other places at Louisiana.
The world premiere was held at the Toronto Film Festival on September 11, 2006. There the film was first screened to the press.
A special screening was held at the Tulane University in New Orleans on September 16, 2006.
The film received mostly negative reviews upon its release and was not a box-office success, despite garnering strong Oscar buzz before its initial open.
Entertainment Weekly on its August 18, 2006 volume included All the King's Men on its Oscar Preview and said it was most likely to win an Oscar and the only reason for it not to win an Oscar is that the opening will be delayed again. (the film was originally to be opened in 2005)
Richard Schickel (Time Magazine) liked the movie, arguing that "it's much more faithful to the tone of the novel" than the original.
Steven Zaillian was clearly stunned by the critical and box-office failure of this film, which opened with only $3.8 million and barely made $7.2 million at the end of its run in US theaters. The weekend's other new wide release, Jackass Number Two, made $28.1 million."Wikipedia
