Writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7″ is set to start streaming from October 16, Netflix has announced. The historical drama was recently picked up by the streamer from the financers Cross Creek at USD 56 million, reported Deadline.

Paramount Pictures, which first had distribution rights to the film, was eyeing a late year theatrical release, and the streamer has kept the latest decided date – before the November election. Due to shutdown during the coronavirus pandemic, Paramount sold the feature to Netflix. Cross Creek still is co-producing the film with the streaming platform.

The film is based on the infamous 1969 trial of seven men charged by the federal government with conspiracy, arising from the counterculture protests in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The trial transfixed the nation and sparked a conversation intended to undermine the US government.

Sorkin is directing the feature from his own script. The cast of the multistarrer includes Jeremy Strong, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Frank Langella, Michael Keaton, Mark Rylance, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Alice Kremelberg. The film appears to be one of the prime contenders for the 2020-21 award season.