Entertainment

Gary Oldman stars as Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz in Mank trailer

He stars opposite Amanda Seyfried and Lily Collins.
He stars opposite Amanda Seyfried and Lily Collins.

Gary Oldman is told to “tell the story you know” in the latest trailer for the Netflix film about Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz.

Mank, directed by David Fincher, chronicles the making of the classic 1941 film through the eyes of the alcoholic playwright.

The black-and-white trailer is shot in the style of the pioneering feature, which is often credited with revolutionising cinematography, editing and narrative structure in filmmaking.

The film recreates and re-evaluates 1930s Hollywood through the eyes of Oldman’s Mankiewicz, who was a scathing social critic, as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane for Orson Welles.

It is Fincher’s first film since Gone Girl in 2014.

Amanda Seyfried features in the trailer as actress Marion Davies while Charles Dance plays her lover, the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst.

Emily In Paris star Lily Collins can also be seen as Mankiewicz’s secretary Rita Alexander while Strike star Tom Burke plays Orson Welles.

Arliss Howard plays Louis B. Mayer, the producer who tells Mankiewicz: “This is a business where the buyer gets nothing for his money but a memory, what he bought still belongs to the man who sold it.

“That’s the real magic of the movies.”

Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer (Netflix)

Mankiewicz went on to win an Oscar for his screenplay, sharing the gong with Welles.

The film will launch in select UK cinemas in November and on Netflix on December 4.