'Parkland' Trailer Arrives in Time for the 50th Anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination

The trailer for the Tom Hanks-backed, celebrity-heavy Kennedy assassination drama Parkland was released today, giving us a look at the latest Tinseltown translation of that November day.

The trailer for the Tom Hanks-backed, celebrity-heavy Kennedy assassination drama Parkland was released today, giving us a look at the latest Tinseltown translation of that November day.

Director and screenwriter Peter Landesman, who wrote a controversial piece on sex slaves for The New York Times Magazine in 2004, is selling Parkland on its accuracy. He recently told Dave McNary of Variety, "We felt missionized to get it right." The film is based on the 2007 book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi, which argues that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

The trailer doesn't really give a good sense of how the drama will play out, although the footage suggests that the film doesn't so much focus on the president and his family but the others around them. There's Billy Bob Thornton as secret service agent Forrest Sorrels, Paul Giamatti as Abraham Zapruder, the women's clothing manufacturer whose home movie captured the shooting, Jacki Weaver as Lee Harvey Oswald's mother, and Zac Efron as Jim Carrico, the first doctor to examine Kennedy in the emergency room. (Yes, you read that right. Zac Efron.)

Parkland's take on the assassination can't help but remind one of Bobby, the 2006 Emilio Estevez-directed take on the Robert F. Kennedy killing, which also looked at a tragic Kennedy event from the point of views of people standing at the sidelines. The film will make the festival circuit rounds and bow in the U.S. September 20. (Update: Wednesday the release date was shifted back to October 4.)