The Writer’s Guild of America strike, which lasted from November 2007 to January 2008, resulted in the project being suspended, and from then until Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s death in early 2014, there were a variety of other complications, behind-the-scenes changes, etc. But through it all, Sacha Baron Cohen was determined to see that The Trial of the Chicago 7 eventually get made, as he felt this was a real-life story that deserved to be told in a film setting.
So it didn’t take long for the Steve Spielberg-helmed version of The Trial of the Chicago 7 to suffer a devastating blow, as Heath Ledger passed away in early 2008, leaving The Dark Knight and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as his final movies.