‘Paterno,’ the biopic starring Al Pacino as the late Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, finally has a premiere date. HBO announced on Friday that the film will debut on Saturday, April 7.
The film takes place in the weeks after former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky’s arrest on child sexual abuse charges and is framed by flashbacks. Pacino and director Barry Levinson have said that the movie does not take a definitive position on whether Paterno did enough when he received a report about Sandusky or the extent of Paterno’s knowledge about abuse by the former assistant coach.
“Joe Paterno was known as an honorable man, an educator, a humanitarian — so trying to make sense out of what happened is, for me, the most fascinating aspect of the story,” Levinson said. “What did he understand? What did he not understand?”
In addition to Pacino, the film’s cast includes Kathy Baker as Sue Paterno, Kathy Baker as Sue Paterno, Greg Grunberg and Larry Mitchell as sons Scott and Jay Paterno, Annie Parisse as daughter Mary Kay Paterno-Hort, and Riley Keough as reporter Sara Ganim, who was the first to report on a grand jury investigation of Sandusky.
HBO announced the premiere date at the end of a new, two-minute trailer released on Friday. It’s the longest look to date at the film after a 48-second teaser trailer was released in January.
