Did we ever deserve Fred Rogers? All evidence points to the contrary—yet there he was all those years, creating, producing, writing, and starring in the legendary children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Rogers, who died in 2003, was a lauded figure in his lifetime, praised for his creative programming as much as he was for his saintly personality. (In times of calamity, how often do you see people quote his famous “look for the helpers” line?) Now, it appears, we are about to receive some much-needed Rogers content, with two new films on the horizon that will celebrate the TV icon’s legacy.
On Tuesday, Focus Features released the trailer for the upcoming documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Directed by Oscar winner Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom), the doc uses archival footage and never-before-seen clips of Rogers to contextualize his legacy and trace how his show addressed then-contentious social issues like civil rights and divorce.
Isn’t it a wondrous, pure thing? Doesn’t that trailer just fill you with hope and pat you on the back, assuring that everything is going to be O.K. eventually? Won’t You Be My Neighbor? debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, drumming up warm reviews and whisking viewers into Rogers’s gentle inner life.
And beyond the documentary set, we’re also getting a film about Rogers titled You Are My Friend, starring Tom Hanks as the beloved entertainer. The film, which was officially announced in January, will be directed by Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl) and is based on a 1998 Esquire profile, in which Rogers was interviewed by reporter Tom Junod, who underwent a personal transformation after landing in Rogers’s orbit.
On Monday, Heller clarified in a statement to Entertainment Weekly that the film is “not a biopic.”
“I disliked that when it got announced it was characterized as such,” she said. “It’s really not. It’s a movie that’s largely focused on a reporter and [Mr. Rogers’s] relationship to his life, and how [the reporter’s] whole world changes when coming in contact with Fred Rogers.”
She added that this film tells “a story for our times, a story about kindness and family connection and trying to tap into our better self. God knows we need that right now!”
While researching the movie, Heller also noted, “the writers found that more people than they could possibly count credited Mr. Rogers with changing their lives.” You Are My Friend will zero in on Junod’s life. “[He was] in a critical point in his life—becoming a new father, having issues with his own father—and meeting Mr. Rogers to write a piece about him, thinking it’s going to be a bit of a puff piece, but it ends up changing his entire life.”
You Are My Friend will begin shooting this fall. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? will hit theaters this summer. Several seasons of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood are already on Amazon Prime, so you can dash back to your childhood whenever you want in the meantime.
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It’s been 15 years since Fred Rogers, the beloved television icon known to millions as Mr. Rogers, died. But on what would have been his 90th birthday, Focus Features has dropped the first official trailer for a new documentary about Rogers’ life and legacy called Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom), Won’t You Be My Neighbor? features interviews with cast members from his acclaimed PBS children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood — including Elizabeth Seamans (Mrs. McFeely) and François Clemmons (Officer Clemmons).
Archival footage from the show as well as conversations with producer Margy Whitmer and rare interviews with Rogers himself — who died in 2003 at the age of 74 — will also color the documentary.
Fred Rogers Fotos International/Getty
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
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A new documentary promises to be a sweet visit with an old neighbor.
The film "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", from director Morgan Neville, takes a look back at the legendary career of children's television icon Fred Rogers through interviews with his wife and production team. It comes on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his classic show, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."
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color share link Here's a first look at the new 'Mister Rogers' documentary Play Video - 3:37 Here's a first look at the new 'Mister Rogers' documentary Play Video - 3:37
Rogers, who died at 74 from stomach cancer in 2003, created the show because he wanted more compassionate programming for children, and many of his lessons still resonate a half century later.
The show began as "Mister Rogers" on CBC Television in 1963 and then debuted in 1968 as "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on PBS, where it ran until 2001.
"If you take all the elements that make good television and do the exact opposite, you have 'Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood,''' show producer Margy Whitmer says in the documentary. "Low production values, simple set, an unlikely star, yet it worked."
Rogers was an ordained minister who didn't plan on a career in television before deciding that kids needed more uplifting programming.
"The Fred Rogers I discovered making this film is at once comfortably familiar and completely surprising. I believe Mister Rogers is the kind of voice we need to hear right now,” Neville said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter in November.
Despite whatever turbulence was roiling the world outside, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" was always a welcoming place of cardigan sweaters and innocent wonder.
"A little boy came up to him and said, 'Mr. Rogers, how did you get out (of the television)?''' his wife Joanne recalls in the film. "And so he talked to the little boy and explained what television was all about, and the little boy was just taking it all in, and when Fred finished, the little boy said, 'How are you going to get back in?'"
Everett The new documentary takes a behind-the-scenes look at the classic children's TV show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."
Rogers did tackle difficult subjects in his inimitable style, from divorce to the assassination of Robert Kennedy to racial tension.
"My being on the program was a statement for Fred,'' said actor Francois Clemmons, an African-American who played the character Officer Clemmons on the show.
Rogers also testified in front of the U.S. Senate for more federal funding for children's television, reflecting his belief that kids need programming beyond slapstick cartoons.
"Children have deep feelings just the way everybody does,'' he says in the film.
The documentary is slated to be released on June 8 by Focus Features.
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