Entertainment Movies Seeing Double! Did You Know Colin Hanks Played Mr. Rogers Before His Dad Tom Did? Nothing like a little fun family rivalry! By Ale Russian Ale Russian Ale Russian is a contributing writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2023. Her work has appeared in Women's World, First For Women, Biography.com and the Chicago Sun-Times. People Editorial Guidelines Published on September 28, 2018 02:12PM EDT Photo: Comedy Central; Sony Pictures Nothing like a little fun family rivalry! On Thursday, Sony Pictures unveiled the first anticipated look at Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers in the studio’s untitled movie about the beloved TV personality. But as fans of Comedy Central’s Drunk History are well aware, this doesn’t mark the first time a member of the Hanks clan has played Mr. Rogers. In a skit released earlier this year for the popular web series titled “Mr. Roger’s Beautiful Life,” Colin, 40, plays Rogers in his early years, as he creates the classic children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and fights to stop budget cuts to public television proposed by Richard Nixon. Tom Hanks Is Fred Rogers in First Look at Movie About Beloved TV Icon Shortly before the skit aired, Tom’s casting in the biopic was announced, which led Colin to troll his dad on Twitter. “Oh, did someone else get cast in a rival Mr Rogets project” he joked. “I would hate to be them right now.” In the first look at Tom’s movie, the Oscar winner, 62, is smiling happily at the camera in a bright red sweater pulled over a buttoned-up shirt and tie over khaki pants — the familiar outfit Fred Rogers is remembered for wearing. Tom is also sporting gray-dyed hair and eyebrows, making him look even more of a transformation into the beloved TV personality for the untitled Mr. Rogers film. Sony also revealed the movie will hit theaters Oct. 2019. The film will focus on Rogers’ unlikely friendship with award-winning journalist Tom Junod, who got to know the television personality while writing a 1998 profile on the star for Esquire magazine. Tom Hanks to Star as Mr. Rogers in Upcoming Biopic You Are My Friend Family Communications Inc/Getty TriStar Pictures described the film as a heart-warmer in which “a cynical journalist begrudgingly accepts an assignment to write a profile piece on the beloved icon and finds his perspective on life transformed.” Rogers, the star of the beloved, long-running children’s series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, was the subject of the doc Won’t You Be My Neighbor? that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. He died in 2003 at the age of 74. The film’s director Marielle Heller recently cleared up what the movie would be about, clarifying that it won’t be a biopic. “[This] movie is…. not a biopic,” the filmmaker told Entertainment Weekly. “I disliked that when it got announced it was characterized as such. It’s really not. It’s a movie that’s largely focused on a reporter and [Mr. Rogers’] relationship to his life, and how [the reporter’s] whole world changes when coming in contact with Fred Rogers.”