Martin Sheen has (lost &) found his next project…
The 82-year-old half-Spanish Golden Globe-winning actor will star in Impossible Dream Entertainment and Double G Films’ dramatic comedy Lost & Found in Cleveland, marking the feature debut of writer-directors Marisa Guterman and Keith Gerchak.
In addition to Sheen, the film will also star Dennis Haysbert, June Squibb, Stacy Keach, Yvette Yates Redick and part-Spanish actor and Broadway star Santino Fontana.
An adult drama targeted toward the audience that recently made Paramount & Fifth Season’s 80 for Brady a hit, Lost & Found in Cleveland is billed as a new American fable about the post-Industrial American Dream in the Industrial Midwest — a slice-of-life depiction over a 24-hour period that follows the personal odysseys of five very different people, whose lives intertwine when America’s favorite televised antiques appraisal show comes to their city.
Talents rounding out the ensemble include Dot-Marie Jones, Loretta Devine, Liza Weil, Esther Povitsky, Rory O’Malley, Jeff Hiller, Jon Lovitz and Mark L. Walberg, Benjamin Steinhauser, Rob Mayes and Vanessa Burghardt.
“Dressed in a palette of pastels, nostalgia and hope, Lost & Found in Cleveland is an Americana portrait that will feel both familiar and magical to audiences,” Guterman told Deadline. “It’s a fable that honors small dreams that are big to the everyday heroes who dare to believe.”
Adds Gerchak: “We always say it’s Best in Show meets The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz was an allegory about the American Dream at the turn of the last century. If Scarecrow represents the farmers, and Tin Man the factory workers, then each of our characters represent a slice through modern America. And rather than a heart or a brain, our heroes bring their objects to our Wizards, the appraisers …only to discover that the answer to self-worth lies within.
“From the hallowed halls of the Old World market to the stalls of the local flea market, there is a nostalgic quality to Cleveland, an archival Americana, with hints of a grand past cocooned for decades. The underlying theme is hope – and we can’t think of a time when that’s needed more,” continued Guterman and Gerchak. “Our everyday heroes travel through the competitive world of televised antiques appraisals toward an unknown future in America’s Rust Belt. The film highlights the drive and anxiety each character brings to their mission, contrasting the urbane world of academic elite with everyday Clevelanders doing the best they can in the reality of the new American Dream.”
Best known for his work in films like Apocalypse Now and Badlands, Sheen has recently been seen in titles including Judas and the Black Messiah, Selma, The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2, The Way and 12 Mighty Orphans, to name a few.
He also starred in Netflix’s comedy Grace and Frankie, which ran on Netflix for seven seasons from 2015-2022.
Fontana won his first Tony Award for his lead role in a Broadway production of Tootsie in 2019 and has also been seen in such Broadway shows as Hello, Dolly!, Billy Elliot the Musical and Sunday in the Park with George, among others. The actor voiced Hans in Frozen and has also featured in films like the comedy Sisters with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. He’s perhaps best known on the TV side for his role as Greg on The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, having also been seen on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mozart in the Jungle and more.