Andrew Garfield Reunites With The Lost Bus Director For A Modern Braveheart Set To Outshine The Original

Andrew Garfield is putting on armor for Paul Greengrass. The director is mounting a big, bloody historical epic called The Uprising, and Garfield is leading the charge against King Richard II. Think Braveheart energy with a stronger respect for what actually happened. Deadline broke the casting, and the ambition here is pretty clear.

"A Braveheart for right now, but with the history turned on instead of off."

What The Uprising is actually about

Garfield is playing a fierce organizer at the center of the peasants' revolt against the rule of King Richard II. Plot specifics are still under wraps, but the setup lines up with the actual uprising that saw commoners push back hard against royal power. Greengrass just came off The Lost Bus, another story built from real events, so he is very much in his lane here.

Why everyone is (fairly) comparing it to Braveheart

The parallels are right there: charismatic rebel, oppressed people, a corrupt crown, large-scale warfare. But the hope — and honestly, the pitch — is that Greengrass will handle the history more carefully than Mel Gibson did.

Braveheart has aged into phenomenon status: a 178-minute runtime that pulled in $213.2 million worldwide, an 8.3 on IMDb, and a 76% critics / 85% audience split on Rotten Tomatoes. It absolutely works as a movie. It just also plays fast and loose with facts, from Gibson's accent to that romance with Princess Isabella. If you care about the real timeline, that stuff can make your eye twitch.

Greengrass, by contrast, is famous for grounding big stories in lived-in detail. He still dramatizes when he needs to — The Lost Bus did that — but his documentary and journalism background tends to keep the world feeling authentic. If you have whiplash from the way some historical epics (hi, Gibson and Ridley Scott) reshape events, this might land differently.

Why Greengrass doing this makes sense

This is the furthest back in time he has gone, and it feels like a natural evolution. He made the Bourne series feel tactile and immediate, then carried that rigor into true-story dramas like Bloody Sunday and Captain Phillips. A large-scale revolt with political stakes is right in his wheelhouse.

Also worth noting: Garfield grew up in England. If accents matter to you after the Braveheart discourse, that should be a comforting data point.

Who is onboard (and what we still do not know)

• Cast: Andrew Garfield leads, joined by Jamie Bell, Cosmo Jarvis, Thomasin McKenzie, Jonny Lee Miller, and Woody Norman. Roles are being kept quiet for now.
• Producers: Jason Blum, Gregory Goodman, Joanna Kaye, Lars Sylvest, Joe Neurauter, and Greengrass himself.
• Distributor: Focus Features will handle the domestic release.

Bottom line: this is the biggest, most old-school historical canvas Greengrass has taken on, and if he brings his usual realism to it, The Uprising could scratch that Braveheart itch without the historical hangover.

If you want a refresher while we wait, Braveheart is streaming on Disney+ in the US.