Kevin Bacon joins Mark Wahlberg’s Patriots Day

Actor Kevin Bacon will play an FBI agent in Mark Wahlberg’s upcoming Boston Marathon bombings movie. The Footloose star will portray real-life FBI Special Agent in Patriots Day, which will chronicle the events surrounding the tragic April, 2013 attacks, which cost three people their lives and left 264 others injured, reported Deadline.

“Richard DesLauriers worked tirelessly as one of the key figures in an impossibly sophisticated investigation and Kevin Bacon possesses the intelligence and empathy to portray him,” director Peter Berg said in a statement announcing the casting.

The film, based on the account of Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, will also feature John Goodman, J K Simmons, Michelle Monaghan, and Wahlberg, who will play Boston Police Sergeant Tommy Saunders, a composite officer central to the investigation and subsequent manhunt for brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Patriots Day is one of three movies in development about the Boston bombings. Jake Gyllenhaal is also working on Stronger, detailing the story of survivor Jeff Bauman, who lost his legs in the explosions, while Casey Affleck has been linked to the lead in Fox production Boston Strong.