If you have been reading the trades then you know that Australian actor Joel Edgerton has for a long been connected to the untitled Osama Bin Laden film with Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal attached. Edgerton, who is best known for starring in the Warrior has made it official – he has signed on to star.
According to the trades, Edgerton has been the number one choice since as early as May; but he had some scheduling conflicts and dealings with an unfinished script. Since Edgerton bowed out of Warner Bros. sequel to 300 and the script is now done, he’s joined the Bin Laden film, which also includes Jason Clarke.
Bigelow will direct the film from Boal’s script. The story focuses on the Navy Seal team that tracked and eventually killed Osama Bin Laden. Boal and Bigelow are well-known for their Hurt Locker collaboration – winning the Oscar for best movie.
The film is scheduled to go into production in February with a release date set for December 19, 2012.
Several roles are still open for casting. One role involves a female reporter entrenched with the Navy Seal team. Variety reports that Rooney Mara had been a possible choice, but her The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo promotion schedule ended that bright idea.
The Aussie has made a name for himself with such films as Animal Kingdom and Warrior. His next big film is The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan.
This is a great Hollywood story in relation to the recent death of Osama bin Laden.
An exclusive story from Variety reports that Mark Boal’s untitled script about the operatives hunting Osama bin Laden concentrates on the very team that wound up killing the terrorist leader, a lucky break for the filmmaker who now has an ending for the project that’s still scheduled to go into production this summer with Kathryn Bigelow directing.
Those close to Boal tell Variety that the “Hurt Locker” writer is continuing his work on the script, and will without a doubt include the 40-minute fire-fight at the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden was found and shot to death Sunday.
Boal was following the mission for quite some time, thanks to his access to military intelligence and his background as an investigative journalist. For him, the timing of bin Laden’s death is a great Hollywood story in that if it had come much later, making changes would’ve been a scramble. The time is still late enough to maximize the movie’s overall premise.
Director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal of The Hurt Locker are working together again on action-adventure Triple Frontier.
Triple Frontieris an ensemble project where the stakes are high. The story is set in the notorious border zone between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil where the Igazu and Paranan rivers converge, making “la triple frontera” difficult to regulate, a haven for organized crime. Bigelow and Boal pitched the original idea together; however the logline is being kept hush-hush. Of course, Boal is writing the script and Bigelow will direct. Both will also be executive producers.
The Hurt Locker, an Iraq war thriller based in 2004 Baghdad, grossed $9 million in just seven weeks with a very limited release, turning in a strong box office record.
