Steven Spielberg is set to supervise WikiLeaks: the Movie after securing the screen rights through DreamWorks studio to “WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrec,” penned by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding.
The book chronicles Julian Assange's life and times, from his childhood through to the launching a WikiLeaks website in 2006. Reportedly considered as an investigative thriller in the pattern of All the President's Men, the picture will be produced by aforementioned studio founded in 1994 by Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. It also presents the inside story of Assange's volatile partnership with the Guardian newspaper and the release, last December, of over 250,000 secret diplomatic cables.
In addition to acquire quickly Leigh and Harding bestseller, DreamWorks have also secured rights to another book, “Inside WikiLeaks,” by Assange's former colleague, Daniel Domscheit-Berg. This could led us to the conclusion that DreamWorks executives are having in mind a heavily Hollywood fictionalised thriller along the lines of the Bourne series.
Authorities think that like The Social Network, the Wikileaks movie would be based on the testimony of insiders combined with some first hand research and fictionalisation. Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, said,
The Guardian's unique collaboration with WikiLeaks led to what some have described as one of the greatest journalistic scoops of the last 30 years. It's Woodward and Bernstein meets Stieg Larsson meets Jason Bourne.”
DreamWorks studio is searching for a scriptwriter, director and actors for this, no doubt, exceptional movie. Project is still in the very early stages, so stay tuned for more details soon.
