Aaron Sorkin to Direct 'The Trial of the Chicago 7'

Sacha Baron Cohen is in talks to star as Yippie Abbie Hoffman.


Aaron Sorkin will direct Amblin Entertainment's The Trial of the Chicago 7, a dramatic account of the 1969 trail in which anti-war activists such as Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden were accused by the federal government of conspiracy and incitement to riot because of the protests surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention.


Sacha Baron Cohen is in early talks to play Hoffman, the anarchic co-founder of the Youth International Party, who became known as Yippies.


Sorkin has also written a screenplay for the project, which Marc Platt will produce. At one point, back in 2008, Steven Spielberg planned to direct, but then the project was put on hold because of a Writers Guild strike. Over the years, Ben Stiller and Paul Greengrass also considered directing. However, now that Sorkin has made his directorial debut with 2017’s Molly’s Game, he’ll be taking on the directorial reins himself.


The infamous trial was also the subject of Brett Morgen’s 2007 documentary, Chicago 10: Speak Your Peace,and Jeremy Kagan’s 1987 docudrama, Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8.


Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird opens on Broadway in December. Baron Cohen’s satirical reality series, Who Is America?,recently appeared on Showtime.