Inheritance (2020 film)

In 2008, Archer Monroe (Patrick Warburton), the patriarch of a wealthy and powerful political family in New York City, passes away suddenly. His estate is divided among his family: Catherine (Connie Nielsen), his wife; William (Chace Crawford), his son, a politician running for reelection; and Lauren (Lily Collins), his daughter, a Manhattan District Attorney. Family attorney Harold Thewlis (Michael Beach) privately shows Lauren her father's posthumous video message to her that leads to a secret underground bunker on the family's property. There she finds a man (Simon Pegg) being held captive. He identifies himself as Morgan Warner, who says he has been held prisoner for thirty years. Morgan claims he was Archer's friend and business partner until one night, while driving drunk, they killed a pedestrian. At Archer's insistence, they covered up the crime before Archer took Morgan prisoner to prevent his exposing the homicide. In the intervening years, Archer treated Morgan like a confessor and admitted many secrets. As proof, Morgan directs Lauren to where the pedestrian's body is buried. Lauren also follows Morgan's clues and finds Archer's longtime mistress, with whom he had a son, as well as evidence that Archer paid bribes to help get his children elected to public office. Lauren is eventually convinced to free Morgan, and, believing he was wronged, directs Harold to set up an offshore bank account and charter a private jet so Morgan can disappear.

While Morgan was sleeping, Lauren took a sample of his fingerprints and sent them for identification. The fingerprints are matched and the file sent to the Monroe house. Catherine sees the file and is terrified by photos of Morgan, whom she identifies as "Carson", claiming he is an "evil man". Lauren discovers Morgan's flight never left and Harold has been murdered. By the time Lauren returns to the Monroe house, Morgan has abducted Catherine and taken her to the bunker. Carson subdues Lauren and reveals that thirty years ago, he drugged and raped Catherine. Archer was taking Carson somewhere to kill him when they hit the pedestrian; furthermore, Carson was responsible for Archer's death, using the poison Archer had intended to use on him. Lauren fights back and, during their struggle, Carson claims he is Lauren's biological father before Catherine seizes his gun and fatally shoots him. Together, Lauren and Catherine pour gasoline throughout the bunker and set it afire, destroying all evidence of Carson's captivity.

• Lily Collins as Lauren Monroe
• Simon Pegg as Morgan Warner / Carson Thomas
• Connie Nielsen as Catherine Monroe
• Chace Crawford as William Monroe
• Patrick Warburton as Archer Monroe
• Marque Richardson as Scott
• Michael Beach as Harold Thewlis
• Joe Herrera as Det. Emilio Sanchez
• Lucas Alexander Ayoub as Eddie Parker
• Christina DeRosa as Sofia Fiore
• Katie Callaway as Reporter 1
• Grae Marino as Jackie

In November 2018, it was announced Simon Pegg and Kate Mara had joined the cast of the film, with Vaughn Stein directing from a screenplay by Matthew Kennedy. Richard B. Lewis, David Wulf, Dan Reardon and Santosh Govindaraju will produce the film, under their Southpaw Entertainment, WulfPak Productions and Convergent Media banners, respectively.[2] From January to March 2019, Connie Nielsen, Chace Crawford and Patrick Warburton joined the cast of the film,[3][4] while Lily Collins joined to replace Mara.[5] In April 2019, Marque Richardson joined the cast of the film.[6]

Principal photography began in February 2019 in Birmingham, Alabama.[7]

It was scheduled to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 20, 2020.[8][9] However, the festival was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[10] Vertical Entertainment and DirecTV Cinema acquired distribution rights to the film and set it for a May 22, 2020 release.[11]

Inheritance holds a 25% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 52 reviews, with a weighted average of 4.31/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "A would-be thriller that waits far too long to embrace the daffy potential of its bizarre premise, this Inheritance should be steadfastly refused."[12] On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 31 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[13]

• Inheritance on IMDb
• Inheritance at Rotten Tomatoes
• Inheritance at Metacritic