This story contains mild spoilers abput the true story that inspired Roofman.

Roofman, which opens October 10 in movie theaters, is writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s fifth feature and the first film since 2016’s The Light Between Oceans.

The Colorado born was absent from the big screen, but he’s been productive. It was important to him to be present for his two kids during their adolescence. So when he wasn’t writing and developing narrative projects, he would make commercials.

His spots for Nike Golf, Powerade and Squarespace landed him a 2017 DGA award for outstanding directorial achievement in commercials.

In 2020, Cianfrance returned to fictional storytelling after Mark Ruffalo hired him to helm his HBO limited series, I Know This Much Is True. He wrote and directed all six episodes; he still views the premium cable endeavor as six-hour movie.

Cianfrance and Ruffalo’s collaboration led to the latter winning an Emmy for his dual role. What makes their success more interesting is that Ruffalo once turned down the role of Dean Pereira in Cianfrance’s breakout film, Blue Valentine  (2010).

Channing Tatum also declined the part, which later went to Ryan Gosling, who starred opposite Michelle Williams’ Oscar-nominated turn.

Years after Tatum passed, Cianfrance met him for a stroll around Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, but the two never discussed Roofman.

Cianfrance continued to rewrite the film with Kirt Gunn, but he was now doing so with Tatum in mind. In 2024, Tatum read the script and accepted the role of Jeffrey Manchester.

During his six months on the lam in 2005, Manchester made his way out into the world, specifically a nearby church. There he met a single mother named Leigh Wainscott, who is portrayed by Kirsten Dunst in the film.

Inside of his Toys “R” hideaway behind a false wall, the real Manchester slept on Spider-Man bedsheets and watched Dunst’s Spider-Man 2.

The relationship between Manchester and Wainscott quickly progressed to the point where Jeff, as his alter ego John Zorn, reveled of being surrogate father to Wainscott’s kids.

“I wasn’t even aware of that.’ It was something subconscious that played through my movies. There’s some personal reasons for it, and it continues to be something that I’m drawn to in my movies. But I’m reluctant to give the specific reason why.”