Nearly a year after it premiered on the British streaming service Sky Cinema, The Last Rifleman (2023) will finally debut in North America. The World War II movie, starring Pierce Brosnan, takes inspiration from the tale of Bernard Jordan, one D-Day veteran who was determined to attend the landings’ anniversary celebration, no matter what it took.
The Last Rifleman centers around fictional Northern Irish World War II veteran Artie Crawford, who goes on a secret trip to Normandy, to commemorate the anniversary of the D-Day landings and pay his respects to his fallen comrades.
The film was first announced in mid-2020, with principal photography wrapping up in August ’22, after six weeks of filming. As aforementioned, the story is loosely based on the exploits of Bernard Jordan. It features a stellar cast, including Pierce Brosnan, Das Boot (1981) star Jürgen Prochnow, Desmond Eastwood, Clémence Poésy and John Amos.
Bernard Jordan’s “great escape” occurred in June 2014, when the then-89-year-old secretly exited his care home in Hove, United Kingdom, boarded a train to Brighton and took a ferry across the English Channel to France. The next day, he attended the D-Day commemoration ceremony, after which he took a return ferry trip to England.
While he’d expected to be reprimanded for his actions, which had sparked concern in Hove, he was greeted in the most British way possible: with a cup of tea.
Speaking about his journey after the fact, Jordan said, “In the months leading up to the anniversary I was trying to get an official trip to Normandy but I didn’t have the necessary passes. Then, the day before D-Day I saw the TV coverage and thought, ‘I have to go and be a part of it.’ I was naughty and secretive.”
He added in a separate interview, “My thoughts were with my mates who had been killed. I was going to pay my respects. I was a bit off course, but I got there.”
The North American rights for The Last Rifleman have been acquired by Samuel Goldwyn Films, with the movie slated to debut in American and Canadian theaters on November 8, 2024.
Speaking with Deadline, Samuel Goldwyn Films President Peter Goldwyn said, “We’re thrilled to bring this heartwarming and poignant story of a war veteran to audiences in the U.S. We’re confident this crowd-pleasing true story will have universal appeal across the whole country.”
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Bernard Jordan’s story was first told in The Great Escaper (2023), starring Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson.