INVICTUS First Image

Director Clint Eastwood‘s last films Gran Torino and Changeling got great reviews but failed to receive Best Picture nominations. We’ll see if he could bring back that Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima mojo with his upcoming possible Oscar contender INVICTUS. Blog Cineast.ch has the first look image from the movie. As you can see above, it’s Morgan Freeman as the legendary Nelson Mandela having a conversation with Matt Damon as rugby Athlete Francois Pienaar.
Freeman got that Mandela posture down pat, complete with the slouch and the right white hair color. What an extraordinary actor playing an extraordinary human being.

The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

INVICTUS opens December 11th, 2009