Participant to Produce and Finance Green Book Starring Academy Award-Nominee Viggo Mortensen and Academy Award-Winner Mahershala Ali

LOS ANGELES, CA (November 30, 2017) – Participant Media announced today that the company will produce and finance the film currently titled Green Book through Amblin Partners. The film, starring Oscar®-nominee Viggo Mortensen and Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali, will be directed by Peter Farrelly, from a script he wrote with Nick Vallelonga and Brian Currie. Emmy®-nominated actress Linda Cardellini (Mad Men, Daddy’s Home, Avengers: Age of Ultron) has also joined the cast. The project is produced by Jim Burke, Charles Wessler and Farrelly along with Vallelonga and Currie. Executive producers are Participant’s Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King, along with Cinetic Media’s John Sloss and Steve Farneth as well as Kwame Parker. The film is slated to commence principal photography this week.

Green Book tells the true story of Tony Lip, an Italian-American bouncer with a seventh-grade education, who in 1962 was hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley, one of the world’s finest jazz pianists, on a concert tour from New York City through the pre-Civil Rights era Deep South. Being that Dr. Shirley was African-American, the men relied on the Negro Motorist Green Book to guide them to the few motels, restaurants and gas stations that they were welcomed in below the Mason-Dixon Line. Confronted with racism, danger, and, sometimes unexpected humanity, the journey opened both men’s eyes to each other, and to the world they lived in.

Farrelly stated, “To have Viggo, Mahershala and Linda in my movie is a blessing and an embarrassment of riches. I am looking forward to working with all of them and sharing Nick’s testament to his father with the world.”

“We are proud to support the whole creative team on this film that beautifully highlights the enduring importance of friendship, family and the freedom to express yourself,” said Jonathan King, Participant’s President of Narrative Film & Television.

Green Book is planned for release through Participant’s output arrangements via Amblin Partners.

Mortensen is represented by UTA, Rawlins Company, and attorney Stuart Rosenthal of Bloom Hergott Diemer Rosenthal Laviolette Feldman Schenkman & Goodman. Ali is represented by WME, Anonymous Content, and Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern. Cardellini is represented by ICM Partners and Mosaic.