Columbia Pictures has won distribution rights for a film that will focus on the raid that killed the man behind the September 11 World Trade Center attacks, Osama bin Laden.
The movie is set to be directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the Oscar-winng filmmaker of Iraq bomb squad hit movie “The Hurt Locker.”
Bigelow and “The Hurt Locker” screenwriter Mark Boal had already been working on a film about bin Laden’s killing or capture before his death on May 2. They were planning to center it around SEAL Team 6’s unsuccessful hunt for the al Qaeda leader, but quickly changed the plans once the news was announced.
“Bigelow and Boal have been developing the project since 2008 and plan to incorporate recent events into the film,” Amy Pascal of Columbia’s parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment said in a statement.
“Mark is second to none as an investigative journalist, and Kathryn will bring the same kind of compelling authenticity and urgency that distinguished The Hurt Locker and made that film so memorable and special,” the statement added.
The film will now focus on the black ops mission conducted at bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan that resulted in his death.
Boal based the plot of “The Hurt Locker” on his experiences as a journalist with a bomb squad in Iraq. The low-budget film was shot mainly guerrilla-style in the Middle East.
It went on to win five Academy Awards, including best film and best director for Bigelow. The movie beat out “Avatar,” which was directed by Bigelow’s ex-husband James Cameron.
The film will be produced with Annapurna Picture’s Megan Ellision and executive producer Greg Shapiro. It will start filming near the end of summer and is set to be released in late 2012. There have been no casting announcement nor has a title been announced for the film.