EXCLUSIVE: Open Road Films has acquired U.S.distribution rights to the untitled Oliver Stone-directed film that will star Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden, the American who fled to Russia seeking asylum after making public more classified documents than anyone since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. Im told that Stone and producing partner Moritz Borman will make this deal as soon as today, partly because of the job that Open Road head Tom Ortenberg did in championing the release of the Stone-directed George W. Bush film W while he was at Lionsgate. <\/p>\n
The deal follows one earlier today in which French sales agent-distributor-producer Wild Bunch acquired international rights to sell on a film that Stone begins shooting late January in Munich. Snowden has been a hot-button topic in town the documentary Citizenfour premiered at the New York Film Festival. Right around then, studio heads began reading a script by Stone that Ive heard is one of his stronger efforts, about a leaker some call gutsy while others call a traitor. Borman produces with Eric Kopeloff. <\/p>\n
Deadline revealed in September that Gordon-Levitt would play Snowden. He most recently completed playing Philippe Petit in the Robert Zemeckis-directed The Long Walk for TriStar and he is now shooting Xmas with Seth Rogen at Sony. <\/p>\n
Stone and Borman got into the Snowden film by making a deal with his Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, for film rights to his novel Time Of The Octopus. That is the basis for the story of an American whistleblower who heads to Russia and the back and forth between the leaker and his lawyer as he waits while that country considers his request for asylum. Stone and Borman also bought the screen rights to The Snowden Files: The Inside Story Of The Worlds Most Wanted Man, a book by Guardian journalist Luke Harding thats published by Guardian Faber. It is unknown at this point whether Snowden himself has any direct input. <\/p>\n
CAA brokered the deal. <\/p>\n
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