Snowden (film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Snowden is an upcoming American biographical political thriller film directed by Oliver Stone and written by Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald. The film is based on the book The Snowden Files by Luke Harding. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Scott Eastwood, Melissa Leo, Timothy Olyphant, Zachary Quinto, Nicolas Cage and Tom Wilkinson. Filming began on February 16, 2015 in Munich, Germany. Snowden is scheduled to be released in North America on May 13, 2016, by Open Road Films.

The true story follows Edward Snowden, an American computer professional who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) to The Guardian in June 2013.

On June 2, 2014, it was announced that Oliver Stone and Moritz Borman acquired the rights to the nonfiction book The Snowden Files by Luke Harding, and that Stone would write and direct a film based on it.[1] On June 10, 2014, Stone acquired the rights to another book, Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena. Stone would use both books as the sources to write his screenplay.[2] On November 6, 2014, Open Road Films acquired the U.S. rights to the film, while Wild Bunch was set to handle foreign sales.[3]Deadline confirmed on November 10, 2014 that Endgame Entertainment had boarded the film to produce.[4] In April 2015, WikiLeaks revealed that Stone paid $700,000 for the rights to Harding's book and $1 million for rights to Kucherena's novel.[5]

On September 21, 2014, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in talks to play Edward Snowden, the American computer professional who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) to the mainstream media starting in June 2013.[6] On November 10, 2014, news confirmed that Levitt would be starring in the lead role.[7] On November 14, 2014, Shailene Woodley was in final talks to join the film to play Snowden's girlfriend, Lindsay Mills.[8] On February 2, 2015, Scott Eastwood joined the cast to play an NSA agent.[9] On February 4, 2015, three more actors joined the cast; Melissa Leo will play documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, Zachary Quinto will play Glenn Greenwald, the journalist chosen by Snowden to leak sensitive information, and Tom Wilkinson will play Ewen MacAskill, defense and intelligence correspondent for The Guardian, who helped report the Snowden story.[10] On February 13, 2015, Variety reported that Ben Schnetzer had also joined the film.[11] On February 19, 2015, Timothy Olyphant joined the film to star as a CIA agent who befriended Snowden before he fled to Russia,[12] and Rhys Ifans and Joely Richardson were added to the cast of the film on February 20, 2015.[13]Nicolas Cage also signed on to play the role of a former US Intelligence official on February 23, 2015.[14]Keith Stanfield was added to the cast on February 25, 2015 to play a National Security Administration co-worker and a close friend to Snowden.[15]

Filming began on February 16, 2015 in Munich, Germany.[16] Shooting was underway in Washington, D.C. in early-April.[17] Shooting in Hawaii began on April 15th and lasted until April 18th. The house used to film is on the same street Edward Snowden lived on. At the end of April, Hong Kong press reported that crews started filming in The Mira Hong Kong, followed by outdoor filming in some old buildings in To Kwa Wan.[18] Shooting lasted until mid-May.[13]

On February 20, 2015, Open Road Films set the film for a December 25, 2015 domestic release.[13]Path would release the film in France on December 30, 2015 and Universum Film would release in Germany on January 7, 2016.[13] However, in September 2015, Open Road moved the film from its Christmas Day release date to 2016. The studio did not give reasons for the delay, however The Hollywood Reporter reported that maybe it was because the film was not finished yet.[19] On October 7, 2015, the film was set for a May 13, 2016 release.[20]

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Snowden (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia