Hot Package: Billy Ray, Adam McKay Team For ‘J6,’ Film About January 6 Assault On Capitol

EXCLUSIVE: The January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, considered the worst domestic attack on democracy since the Civil War, will be the subject of J6, a feature film scripted and to be directed by Billy Ray as his follow-up to the highly rated Showtime miniseries The Comey Rule. Joining him is Adam McKay, who is in the Oscar hunt now for Don’t Look Up. McKay will produce along with Todd Schulman, Josh McLaughlin, Cullen Hoback and Shane Salerno, latter of whom was exec producer on the Jeff Daniel-Brendan Gleeson starrer The Comey Rule.

Deadline has confirmed that the J6 script will be shopped to studios and streamers imminently, and that conversations with equity financiers have already begun.

Ray had originally expected to long look at the events of January 6 in the form of another limited series. Deeply affected by the attack, he traveled to Washington, D.C. within days of the siege, and interviewed a number of the key principals when memories were raw and fresh. That included Capitol police officers Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn, as well as members of Congress who were trapped inside the Capitol when the violent siege unfolded. Fanone consulted on the screenplay throughout the process.

“The goal was to do a ground-level view of a momentous day,” said Ray. “It’s about protesters who became rioters and cops who became defenders of democracy. Someone else can tell the story of the chaos at the White House on that day. I wanted to stay in the trenches.”

While he was writing the script, Ray watched Cullen Hoback’s HBO documentary series Q: Into the Storm, which explores the QAnon conspiracy theory and the people involved with it. Hoback had also been at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and filmed some of the attack. Ray sought out Hoback and told him about his January 6 project.

“I was at the U.S, Capitol on January 6 with cameras,” Hoback said. “Since then, there’s been a campaign to chisel away at the truth of what really went down. Billy’s journalistic approach will make it more difficult for opportunistic politicians and pundits to rewrite history.”

Hoback suggested bringing Ray’s script to McKay and Schulman at Hyperobject Industries, both of whom had served as executive producers on Q: Into the Storm, which premiered on HBO in March 2021.

McKay was preparing for the Netflix release of the star-studded Don’t Look Up, but he read the script and was moved by the material and Ray’s passion enough to agree to come aboard with Schulman as a producer.

Ray, who initially developed a J6 project at Showtime as a five-episode limited series, went back to the drawing board. He turned 300 pages of scripted material into a 120-page feature script and created something entirely new.

“Billy has written a screenplay that is not only harrowing and terrifying but is sure to become the definitive cinematic document on that gut-wrenching day,” McKay said.

Ray’s other fact-based films are Captain Phillips, Breach, Shattered Glass and Richard Jewell.