Clint Eastwood’s ‘Richard Jewell’ trailer traces Atlanta bombing

Clint Eastwood will return to the big screen with another film adaptation of a true story. This time, he’s going back to Atlanta in 1996.

In Eastwood’s new trailer for “Richard Jewell,” the director recounts the true story of an innocent man who was wrongly accused of planting a bomb at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Played by Paul Walter Hauser from “I, Tonya,” Jewell was the security guard who found and reported explosive devices on the park grounds.

But the initial hero appraisal he received was short-lived. The media and law enforcement got his story wrong. Suddenly, he was a suspect.

As Warner Bros. put it in its movie synopsis: “…within days, the law enforcement wannabe becomes the FBI’s number one suspect, vilified by press and public alike, his life ripped apart. Reaching out to independent, anti-establishment attorney Watson Bryant, Jewell staunchly professes his innocence.”

The trailer begins with Jewell sitting in a dark room across from two FBI agents investigating the bombings. Jon Hamm, one of the agents, instructs a nervous Jewell: “I want you to say into this phone, ‘There’s a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes.’”

The film also stars Kathy Bates, Olivia Wilde, Ian Gomez, Dylan Kussman, Wayne Duvall and Sam Rockwell, who plays Jewell’s attorney; it’s based on Marie Brenner’s Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell.” Billy Ray, whose script for “Captain Phillips” earned him an Academy Award nomination, wrote the screenplay.

“Richard Jewell” arrives in theaters Dec. 13.