The Current War

The Current War dramatizes the rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse as they compete to build the system that will electrify the United States in the late nineteenth century. Edison, backed by the financier J.P. Morgan and aided by his assistant Samuel Insull, promotes his direct current design, while Westinghouse, working with the Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla, bets on alternating current. Their struggle to win contracts to light American cities becomes a contest over which technology will shape the modern world.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directed the film, his third feature after The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014) and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), from a screenplay by Michael Mitnick. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Edison, Michael Shannon plays Westinghouse, and Nicholas Hoult plays Tesla, with Katherine Waterston, Tom Holland and Matthew Macfadyen also appearing. Timur Bekmambetov and Basil Iwanyk produced.

The film had a budget of about 30 million dollars and took roughly 12 million dollars worldwide, a modest return relative to its cost. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.5 from around 33,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.7 from a much smaller base of about 1,200 votes. A critics' rating of 6.3 from 107 reviews places it in similar territory to those audience scores.