50 Fun Facts About The Post (2017 Film)

Who directed The Post?

He also produced it, and he later said the story was one that could not wait two or three years to be told.

Which two stars play Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee?

The Post was the first time either had worked with Spielberg on the same film as the other.

In which year is The Post set?

The film ends with the Watergate break-in a year later, the moment All the President's Men begins.

Which two writers share the screenplay credit on The Post?

Singer, an Oscar winner for Spotlight, was hired to rewrite Hannah's script just ten weeks before filming.

Which producer bought the rights to Liz Hannah's screenplay in October 2016?

Spielberg came aboard the following March after cancelling The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.

Spielberg made The Post while post-production continued on which effects-heavy film of his?

He compared it to juggling Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in the early 1990s.

How did Spielberg handle the role of Richard Nixon in the film?

No voice actor was used at all for the president.

Where did The Post hold its premiere on December 14, 2017?

It went into limited release on December 22 and wide release on January 12, 2018.

Roughly how much did The Post gross worldwide?

That came against a $50 million production budget, with $81.9 million from the US and Canada.

Which two Academy Award nominations did The Post receive?

It also collected six Golden Globe nominations, including Best Actor for Hanks and Best Original Score.

Which organisation named The Post the best film of 2017?

Time magazine and the American Film Institute also put it in their top ten of the year.

Who composed the score for The Post, his 28th collaboration with Spielberg?

He chose The Post over Ready Player One because the two schedules clashed, leaving that film to Alan Silvestri.

The trailer for The Post premiered exclusively on which TV programme?

The trailer's music featured the Boston Typewriter Orchestra.

Which actor plays Daniel Ellsberg in The Post?

The Americans star went on to play Lloyd Vogel opposite Hanks again in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

Which Breaking Bad actor was singled out by critics for his supporting turn as Post editor Ben Bagdikian?

Reviewers praised his performance alongside Streep's and Hanks's.

In the film's plot, Ellsberg first leaks the documents to which New York Times journalist?

The Post only enters when a stranger leaves a hundred pages on a reporter's desk.

Which think tank does Ellsberg work for when he copies the classified study?

Post editor Ben Bagdikian, a former RAND colleague, tracks him down as the source.

Which Secretary of Defense, a friend of Graham, warns her about an unflattering story in the film?

Bruce Greenwood plays the man who commissioned the study and then kept sending troops to Vietnam.

How many pages of the report does Ellsberg hand to Bagdikian in the film?

In real life the handover took place in a Boston-area motel days after the Times had been enjoined.

Why do the Post's lawyers panic after Graham gives the go-ahead to print?

Sharing Sheehan's source risked contempt of court under the injunction and Espionage Act liability.

By what margin does the Supreme Court rule in the newspapers' favour at the film's climax?

The real ruling on June 30, 1971 was a terse per curiam opinion; Nixon then barred the Post from the White House.

The film's final scene shows a security guard discovering a burglary at which building?

Frank Wills's call to the police kicks off the scandal that All the President's Men picks up.

Which former New York Times counsel called the film "a good movie but bad history"?

Times veterans objected that the script underplayed the paper's role in breaking the story and winning the 1972 Pulitzer.

Which Watergate reporter called The Post a "masterpiece"?

The film's closing scene deliberately hands off to the story he and Bernstein would break.

Which 1976 film, in which Jason Robards played Bradlee, begins where The Post ends?

Robards won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his Bradlee.

Which grade did CinemaScore audiences give The Post?

Rotten Tomatoes settled at 88 percent and Metacritic at 83, indicating universal acclaim.

Which costume designer was praised for taking Katharine from 'leaden gray to free-flowing gold'?

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times noted the subtle brightening in her review.

The Secretary of Defense who ordered the study in 1967 said he wanted it to be what?

He wanted an "encyclopedic history of the Vietnam War" and did not tell President Johnson or Secretary of State Rusk.

How many volumes made up the Pentagon Papers study?

That was 3,000 pages of analysis and 4,000 pages of documents, classified Top Secret - Sensitive.

The Pentagon Papers cover US involvement in Vietnam from 1945 up to which year?

The report's official title is the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force.

With which friend did Ellsberg photocopy the study in October 1969?

Both were later charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 before a mistrial freed them.

On what date did The New York Times begin publishing the Pentagon Papers?

The Washington Post began its own series on June 18, after Bagdikian's motel handover.

Which Alaska senator read 4,100 pages of the papers into the record of his subcommittee?

Bagdikian passed him the pages at midnight outside the Mayflower Hotel; Beacon Press later published them.

Why were the charges against Ellsberg and Russo dismissed in 1973?

The judge declared a mistrial; the pair were freed but never actually acquitted under the Espionage Act.

In which year were the Pentagon Papers finally declassified and released in full?

The National Archives released them to the Nixon Presidential Library on June 13, exactly forty years after the first Times story.

Katharine Graham became the first woman to do what in 1972?

Her 1997 memoir Personal History won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography the following year.

Ben Bradlee received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 from whom?

He became the Post's executive editor in 1968 and had toured with both Kennedy and Nixon in the 1960 campaign.

Who bought The Washington Post from the Graham family in 2013?

The $250 million sale went through his holding company Nash Holdings.

Which branch of the military did Daniel Ellsberg serve in during the 1950s?

He commanded a rifle company and left as a first lieutenant in 1957 before his years at RAND and in Vietnam.

Which pair directed the 2009 Oscar-nominated documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America?

The nickname came from Henry Kissinger; James Spader played Ellsberg in an earlier TV movie.

Under what title was the film briefly known during its 2017 shoot, before reverting in August?

The switch was announced alongside the supporting cast in June 2017; Spielberg locked the final cut that November.

What was The Post's production budget?

It earned roughly $82 million domestically and $98 million elsewhere, so the film more than tripled its cost.

How many nominations did The Post receive at the 75th Golden Globe Awards?

They covered picture, director, both leads, screenplay and score, yet the film went home empty-handed.

Spielberg freed up for The Post after cancelling which Weinstein Company project?

A casting setback in February 2017 ended that project; within a month he was in talks to direct The Post, saying it was a story that could not wait two or three years.

Which unusual ensemble supplied music for The Post's trailer?

The trailer debuted on Stephen Colbert's Late Show, and the poster followed a day later.

The Post's composer passed on Spielberg's other 2018 film, which was scored instead by whom?

The two films had overlapping post-production schedules, and Spielberg went into the recording sessions for The Post without having heard a note.

On its wide-release weekend, The Post finished second at the box office behind which holdover?

It took $18.6 million that weekend, and two-thirds of its audience was over 35.

Which real security guard, shown in the final scene, phones police about a burglary in progress?

His call came one year after the court ruling depicted in the film and touched off the scandal that consumed the Nixon presidency.

Which studio gave The Post its limited US release on December 22, 2017?

It opened in just nine theaters, averaging more than $62,000 per screen the following weekend, before going wide in January.

In the film, how does Nixon respond to the newspapers' Supreme Court victory?

The president is never shown by an actor; Spielberg used Nixon's real White House recordings and filmed him only in silhouette.