Watch Jon Hamm in the new ‘Confess, Fletch’ trailer
Jon Hamm is to play Irwin ‘Fletch’ Fletcher in Confess, Fletch, and his version of the character seems as if it stays faithful to the hapless original whilst also bringing something new to the role. A revival of author Gregory Mcdonald’s character, famously, it was Chevy Chase who first starred as the titular rogue in 1985’s Fletch, and its 1989 sequel Fletch Lives.
The first trailer for the Confess, Fletch has been released, and from it, you get the sense that it is to be one of the year’s surprise successes, with the form of black humour that Mcdonald was famous for, coursing through the script.
Speaking about the film to The Hollywood Reporter back in 2020, Hamm expressed that he respected Chase’s character but had no intention of imitating it. “I was an investigative reporter,” Fletcher explains to a client at one point in the trailer. “It’s an occupation that’s been cheapened by the digital age — like, president.” Produced by Miramax, the film will be released theatrically, digitally and on-demand on September 16th.
“The character in the book’s a lot different than Chevy’s portrayal, and so when Bill Block at Miramax came to me and said, ‘You know, we own this and we think you’d be a good fit,’ I agreed, but I don’t want to imitate Chevy,” Hamm told the publication. “I’m not interested in that, and I don’t think anybody else would be. We already have that version, so maybe there’s a way to get a version that’s more true to life for the book, more intellectual and a little more live in its sensibility.”
Confess, Fletch follows the eponymous character as he finds himself embroiled in a murder case in Europe whilst trying to track a missing artwork. The trailer shows him being arrested on suspicion of the murder, as well as some of the other suspects, who live opulent lives, to say the least. Think Knives Out, just on the continent.
Notably, there have been a string of failed attempts to bring Fletch back over the years, and now Hamm looks to be perfectly cast in the role. The movie stars John Slattery, a co-star of Hamm’s in Mad Men, as well as Roy Wood Jr., Annie Mumolo, Ayden Mayeri, Lorenza Izzo, Kyle MacLachlan, and Marcia Gay Harden.
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