Tom Hanks' 'wildly ambitious' debut novel set for release in 2023
Tom Hanks’s debut novel The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece will drop in 2023.
The Forrest Gump star’s first book has been given a U.S. and U.K. release date of 9 May next year, according to The Guardian.
The plot will cover 80 years of story time, leading to a film’s opening. Described by its publisher Penguin Random House as “wildly ambitious”, The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece follows the creation of a “colossal, star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film”.
Its characters include a soldier returning from war, a young artist, a director, an emerging film star, and a production assistant.
Tom, 66, said in a statement: “Movie making is very hard work over a very long period of time that consists of so many moments of joy slapped up against an equal number of feelings of self-loathing. It is the greatest job in the world and the most confounding of labours that I know of.”
Quoting from Hamlet, the Hollywood heavyweight continued, “I hope the book captures as much of ‘the accidental judgements and casual slaughter’ that go into a motion picture’s dictum to hold ‘a mirror up to nature’ that I have witnessed (and caused) since I joined the Screen Actors Guild.”
The publishing director of Penguin Random House imprint Hutchinson Heinemann, Ailah Ahmed, called Tom’s book deal with the company “a publisher’s dream come true”.
She added, “The fact that he has written an epic about ordinary people in a rather extraordinary world, and one that is thoughtful, poignant and hugely entertaining is icing on the cake.”
