Wrestle mania … Steve Carell in Foxcatcher  Moneyball meets Monster. The former because it's sports-themed, men-heavy and by Bennett Miller.  The latter because it takes a photogenic mainstream star (in this case, Steve Carell) and lets them chow down on a career-redefining role as a real-life mentally-ill killer.  John Eleuthère du Pont was the paranoid schizophrenic heir to the du Pont chemical fortune. He was a philatelist, a coach, a sports enthusiast, an ornithologist and conchologist, published several books on birds, and founded and directed the Delaware Museum of Natural History. He also built a wrestling training facility called Team Foxcatcher on his Pennsylvania estate. The exteriors of his house were painted matt black (weirdly, just like Gru's in Carell cartoon Despicable Me).  Mark Ruffalo plays Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz, a longtime friend of du Pont. One night in 1996, du Pont shot and killed him. Du Pont then locked himself in his mansion for two days negociating with the police, who never established a motive for the crime.  Channing Tatum plays Dave's younger brother, Dave, and Sienna Miller is Dave's wife. Anthony Michael Hall is du Pont's assistant; Vanessa Redgrave du Pont's mother.  Bennett Miller started research in 2005 and then developing the project two years later, bankrolled by billionaire backer Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures, with Sony Pictures Classics distributing (they've also got Blue Jasmine and Before Midnight this season).  It has to be chasing picture, director, script (by E Max Fyre and Dan Futterman, who wrote Miller's other movie, Capote) and, most particularly, actor. The first and only still released suggests Carell fans are in for a shock and that a nomination is in the bag (even if only for the nose). More unexpectedly, best supporting actor for Tatum, who called the shoot "the hardest acting challenge I've had to date". And this from a man who was in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.  Miller is a best actor Oscar-maker. Philip Seymour Hoffman converted his nomination for Capote into a win; Brad Pitt didn't repeat the trick for Moneyball, but at this stage you'd place good money on Carell. Redgrave always has a shot at supporting actress. The race for supporting actor is looking especially wide open this year, so there might even be space for Tatum and Ruffalo. By contrast, best adapted screenplay is incredibly tight, so it might get squeezed out there.  That's a heck of a tale, in particular du Pont's multi-hyphenate back-story. It's hard not to like Ruffalo, Tatum and Carell, in fact – this might well be a five-hankie job. Miller is a sure pair of hands with this kind of material, and a selective picker: he's been invested in this for ages. And though wrestling might not float everyone's boat, the success of Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler suggests sweat and grapple can be catnip for men in tuxes.  It looks a little gloomy from that picture, frankly. And indeed, the synopsis doesn't suggest a lot of laughs. We know the ending already – but then that's not stopped scores of classics. Could it be almost too baity? It's ticking almost every Academy Award box going.  No premiere yet announced – hope had been high it'd follow Moneyball to Toronto. But it's out in the US on 20 December and 17 January in the UK.  • Michael Hann on The Counselor• 12 Years a Slave• Fruitvale Station• The Wolf of Wall Street
Our series continues with a look ahead to Bennett Miller's followup to Moneyball starring Steve Carell as you've never seen him before