Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg Team Up For Pentagon Papers Film 'The Post'

Finally, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep are doing their first film together (as actors), the two are getting ready for an upcoming Steven Spielberg drama titled "The Post," which is based on the politically charged story of the Pentagon Papers publishing.

This trio of highly talented people from the industry is making efforts in clearing their schedules for initiating the film's production, most probably by May this year. The film is scripted by Liz Hannah and it will revolve around the role played by the Washington Post in the publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, New York Daily News reported. 

According to Variety, Post's Editor Ben Bradlee's character will be played by Tom Hanks, while Meryl Streep will depict as the first female publisher of the Washington Post, Kay Graham. It is known that both worked together with The New York Times and challenged the federal government over their rights to publish.

The Pentagon Papers is a classified material that revealed excruciating details about the ineffectiveness of the Vietnam War, the war that involved the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam which later increased to more than 500,000 troops by 1968. The papers also contained the detailed study of how the Nixon administration had fibbed to the public.

It is contended that the initial release of the Pentagon Papers was terminated when Bradlee and Graham fought for their rights to publish the rest of the information in direct defiance of the Executive Branch.

It is also reported that Steven Spielberg has already postponed the production of his next film "The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara", in order to start his much-awaited project. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have worked together in many films including "Bridge of Spies", "Saving Private Ryan", "Catch Me If You Can" etc. The film may hit the screens by the year end.