Not many screenplays have had their genesis in the rush of a college orientation week. But that's exactly where The Current War began. On its screenwriter, Michael Mitnick's first day at Yale University's School of Drama he was given a simple assignment: to bring an idea from history to class.

"My mind flashed back to an Apple computers poster of Thomas Edison I'd had on my childhood bedroom wall," he remembers, adding with a laugh: "I'd picked [that poster] mainly because I thought Edison looked like a mad scientist." That first night in New Haven, he set to work researching the famous inventor. He quickly discovered that there was much more to his story than the invention of the light bulb and a shock of mad scientist hair.