Brendan Fraser To Star As Dwight D. Eisenhower In D-Day Movie ‘Pressure’ About The Historic Normandy Landings

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Brendan Fraser (The Whale) has been set to play Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower in Working Title and Studiocanal‘s upcoming D-Day movie Pressure.

Fraser joins BAFTA winner Andrew Scott, who as we revealed on Friday will star as Britain’s Chief Meteorological Officer James Stagg in the ticking-clock drama about the tense days leading up to the Normandy landings.

The true story will see All Of Us Strangers and Ripley star Scott play Group Captain Stagg, whose job it was to inform Eisenhower of weather conditions that would make-or-break their Normandy invasion. The complex decision-making was critical in the fate of the war and the course of history.

Army General Eisenhower (nicknamed Ike) was lauded for his leadership during the war and would go on to become the 34th U.S. President, serving between 1953-1961.

Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai) will direct the movie, which is due to start shooting in the UK this September. Additional casting is underway, with Studiocanal handling world sales.

Olivier Award-winner David Haig and Maras wrote the screenplay based on Haig’s critically lauded play, which explores the personal and military stresses on Stagg and how tensions grew between the teams with different weather forecasts for the date of the proposed D-Day. The film will concentrate on the pressure-cooker of the decision-making but also capture the scale of the landings.

The official synopsis reads: “In the seventy two hours leading up to D-Day, all the pieces are in place except for one key element—the British weather. Britain’s Chief Meteorological Officer James Stagg (Scott) is called upon to deliver the most consequential forecast in history, locking him into a tense standoff with the entire Allied leadership. The wrong conditions could devastate the largest ever seaborne invasion, while any delay risks German intelligence catching on. With only his trusted aide Captain Kay Summersby to confide in, and haunted by a catastrophic D-Day rehearsal, the final decision rests with Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower (Fraser). With only hours to go, the fate of the war and the lives of millions hang in the balance.”

The Whale and The Mummy star Fraser — who is virtually the same age as Eisenhower was at the time of the Normandy landings — was most recently seen in Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon. Upcoming he has Searchlight’s Rental Family in post and is attached to star in a new movie about William Tell and action-adventure Sacrifice with Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Evans.

Fraser is represented by CAA, Linden Entertainment, and Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson.