Founded | 2008 |
---|---|
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Joe Ricketts (CEO) Alfed Levitt (COO) Brian Falk (Producer/Executive) Robert Stone (Producer/Executive) |
Website | The American Film Company |
The American Film Company is a film production company founded in 2008 by Joe Ricketts. Ricketts previously founded TD Ameritrade and, with his family, owns the Chicago Cubs. [1] The American Film Company, founded on the belief that real life is often more compelling than fiction, produces feature films about true stories from America's past. [2] The company has offices in New York City and Los Angeles.
The company's first film was The Conspirator , [3] a historical drama about the trial of Mary Surratt, the lone woman charged as a co-conspirator in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. [4] The film was directed by Robert Redford and stars James McAvoy and Robin Wright. [5] In keeping with the company's goal to create historically accurate films, Pulitzer Prize winner James McPherson, Lincoln assassination expert Thomas Turner, and Army historian Col. Fred Borch consulted on the film. [6]
The American Film Company is currently developing The Arsenal, a film about John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, and Midnight Riders, about the midnight ride of Paul Revere. [7]
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth theatrical family from Maryland, he was a noted actor who was also a Confederate sympathizer; denouncing President Lincoln, he lamented the then-recent abolition of slavery in the United States.
Samuel Alexander Mudd Sr. was an American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth concerning the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Charles Robert Redford Jr. is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades such as an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1996, the Academy Honorary Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and the Honorary César in 2019. He was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014.
Mary Elizabeth Surratt was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and remains controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried in the conspiracy, but was not convicted.
George Andrew Atzerodt was a German American repairman, Confederate sympathizer, and conspirator in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. He was assigned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve and made no attempt. Atzerodt was tried by a military tribunal, sentenced to death for conspiracy, and hanged along with three other conspirators.
Lewis Thornton Powell was an American Confederate soldier who attempted to assassinate William Henry Seward as part of the Lincoln assassination plot. Wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, he later served in Mosby's Rangers before working with the Confederate Secret Service in Maryland. John Wilkes Booth recruited him into a plot to kidnap Lincoln and turn the president over to the Confederacy, but then decided to assassinate Lincoln, Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson instead, and assigned Powell the task to kill Seward.
Alexander Gardner was a Scottish photographer who immigrated to the United States in 1856, where he began to work full-time in that profession. He is best known for his photographs of the American Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and of the conspirators and the execution of the participants in the Lincoln assassination plot.
John Joseph Ricketts is an American billionaire businessman. He is the founder, former CEO and former chairman of TD Ameritrade. He has an estimated net worth of US$4.1 billion as of 2024, according to Forbes. He has pursued a variety of other business ventures including DNAinfo.com, High Plains Bison, The Lodge at Jackson Fork, and The American Film Company. Ricketts also engages in philanthropy through The Ricketts Art Foundation, Opportunity Education Foundation, The Cloisters on the Platte Foundation, and The Ricketts Conservation Foundation. He and his family have been the owners of the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball since October 2009.
Colonel Frederic L. Borch was a career United States Army attorney with a master's degree in national security studies, who served as chief prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions. He resigned his commission in August 2005 after three prosecutors complained that he had rigged the system against providing due process to defendants. He was replaced by Robert L. Swann
John Harrison Surratt Jr. was an American Confederate spy who was accused of plotting with John Wilkes Booth to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln; he was also suspected of involvement in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. His mother, Mary Surratt, was convicted of conspiracy by a military tribunal and hanged; she owned the boarding house that the conspirators used as a safe house and to plot the scheme.
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died of his wounds the following day at 7:22 am in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. His funeral and burial were marked by an extended period of national mourning.
This is the filmography of the American actor, director, producer and activist Robert Redford.
The Surratt House is a historic house and house museum located at 9110 Brandywine Road in Clinton, Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The house is named for John and Mary Surratt, who built it in 1852. Mary Surratt was hanged in 1865 for being a co-conspirator in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. It was acquired by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) in 1965, restored, and opened to the public as a museum in 1976.
The Prisoner of Shark Island is a 1936 American drama film that presents a highly whitewashed and fictionalized life of Maryland physician Samuel Mudd, who treated the injured presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth and later spent time in prison after his unanimous conviction for being one of Booth's accomplices. The film was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, was directed by John Ford and starred Warner Baxter and Gloria Stuart.
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.
The Conspirator is a 2010 American mystery historical drama film directed by Robert Redford and based on an original screenplay by James D. Solomon. It is the debut film of the American Film Company. The film tells the story of Mary Surratt, the only female conspirator charged in the Abraham Lincoln assassination and the first woman to be executed by the US federal government. It stars Robin Wright as Mary Surratt, together with James McAvoy, Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood, Jonathan Groff, Tom Wilkinson, Alexis Bledel, Kevin Kline, John Cullum, Toby Kebbell, and James Badge Dale.
The Mary E. Surratt Boarding House in Washington, D.C. was the site of meetings of conspirators to kidnap and subsequently to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It was operated as a boarding house by Mary Surratt from September 1864 to April 1865.
The Company You Keep is a 2012 American political thriller film starring Robert Redford and Shia LaBeouf and directed by Redford. The script was written by Lem Dobbs based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Neil Gordon. The film was produced by Nicolas Chartier, Redford and Bill Holderman.
Killing Lincoln is an American television film inspired by the 2011 book of the same name by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. This two-hour political docudrama contains events surrounding the presidency and assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It was originally broadcast on National Geographic Channel on February 17, 2013. Narrated and hosted by American actor Tom Hanks, the film stars Billy Campbell as President Lincoln and Jesse Johnson as John Wilkes Booth. It was written and executive produced by Erik Jendresen, directed by Adrian Moat (Gettysburg), produced by Chris Cowen, Mark Herzog, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Mary Lisio, David Zucker, and Terri Weinberg.
Manhunt is an American historical drama miniseries created by showrunner Monica Beletsky, adapted from James L. Swanson's book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. The series follows Edwin Stanton's search for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Directed by Carl Franklin and starring Tobias Menzies, the series was produced for Apple TV+, and released on March 15, 2024.