Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Kill Bin Laden’ film will come out on October 12, 2012!

The Playlist has the story:

Continuing to be developed well under the radar, almost to the point where we were wondering if it was still happening, Kathryn Bigelow‘s “The Hurt Locker” followup, her currently untitled Seal Team 6 flick now has a firm release date: October 12, 2012—right in the heart of awards season.

Since late last year, Bigelow and writer Mark Boal have been hard at work on the black ops thriller, the details of which, at the time, were being kept under wraps but was rumored to be about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Those rumors turned out be true but when the Al Qaeda leader was suddenly killed the spring, it was reported that Boal a former investigative reporter, shifted his research and resources and was already rewriting with a section covering the 40 minute firefight that resulted in Bin Laden’s death. Even more, Aussie actor Joel Edgerton was said to be a frontrunner for the untitled film—also referred to as “Kill Bin Laden”—and despite Columbia picking up the rights to the film, nothing has been heard on casting since. And considering Edgerton will be busy on Baz Luhrmann‘s “The Great Gatsby” this fall, we’d guess he’s no longer in the running.

Of course, any other details are being sealed (ha!) for now. But with a release date now looming just over a year away, updates should begin to trickle out soon. There is no other film slated for that weekend yet, but the film is now poised to be a major player on the fall festival circuit next year (you can bet Venice and TIFF folks are making calls now) and will be a strong contender to get Bigelow back on the podium in the Kodak Theater.

-Joey's Two Cents: I'm eager to see them back at work, as The Hurt Locker remains a modern day war classic to me...thoughts?

Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s Bin Laden movie will hit theaters in late 2012!

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Columbia Pictures has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s project regarding Navy Seal Team 6 and its hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

The duo behind the Oscar-winning thriller The Hurt Locker have been working on the project for some time and were eyeing a summer start when real life events -- Bin Laden’s killing by the black ops team -- overtook the
project. Boal is incorporating the latest developments into the script.

Boal and Bigelow will produce the project, along with Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures, which is financing. Greg Shapiro, who worked on Hurt Locker, is exec producing.

Production is slated to begin in the late summer. The film will be released in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the studio.

The pickup marks another timely and elevated project for Amy Pascal and Columbia's slate. After the success of The Social Network, they have proven themselves unafraid to try on dramas if the right creative people are involved.

Annapurna, meanwhile, has also been ratcheting up its slate, which has become more and more high-profile in recent months.

CAA repped Bigelow and Boal in the deal.

-Joey's Two Cents: I don't know that it'll be an Oscar player, but it'll likely be a crowd pleaser...thoughts?

Joel Edgerton will star in Kathryn Bigelow's Bin Laden movie...

...according to 24 Frames:

As "The Hurt Locker" team of Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal continue to work on their Osama bin Laden movie, they've signed up their first actor.

Australian Joel Edgerton will play a special operative in the picture, said two sources familiar with the project who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss it. The actor will be part of an ensemble of male commandos.

Edgerton, who has been short-listed for a number of high-profile roles recently (including one of the leads in "The Hunger Games" and the Bourne reboot), passed on the opportunity to work opposite Kristen Stewart in "Snow White and the Huntsman" to climb aboard the Bin Laden film.

Edgerton can next be seen opposite Tom Hardy in the mixed martial arts movie "Warrior" as well as in the upcoming Disney flick "The Odd Life of Timothy Green." The untitled Bin Laden movie aims to shoot as early as this summer.

As for "Snow White," Chris Hemsworth, the star of this weekend's "Thor," is the top contender to play the titular huntsman--despite the fact that, at 27, he's not nearly as old as the character would have been had Viggo Mortensen, who was initially cast, wound up playing the part.

A person familiar with the project said Hemsworth won't play Stewart's primary love interest; that honor will go to another boy of summer. Sam Claflin, who is playing a missionary in this month's "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," will take on the role.

"Snow White," which will mark Stewart's first movie after "The Twilight Saga" wraps up its five-picture run, is also scheduled to begin filming this summer.

-Joey's Two Cents: This strikes me as pretty good casting, but it's still early...thoughts?

Does Osama Bin Laden’s death help or hurt Kathryn Bigelow’s 'Kill Bin Laden'?

From Collider:

First off, a little perspective: I am aware that the extent to which the long-awaited death of Osama Bin Laden affects movies is miniscule compared to the closure and sense of justice that death provides to those affected by Al-Qaeda’s terrorism. If a sense of closure for families that lost someone on 9/11 is a “10″, then news about a Bin Laden movie is about 0.0001. But we’re a movie news site and the death of this hated piece of shit has affected various movies in production, most notably, Kathryn Bigelow’s Kill Bin Laden.

As we’ve previously reported Bigelow and Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal want to do a smaller movie before moving on to the international drug crime drama, Triple Frontier. In January, we reported that the indie thriller was about the hunt for Bin Laden, but then Variety updated their story to say the film had nothing to do with Bin Laden. What could have led them to originally think that it did? Apparently the script is called “Kill Bin Laden”. And it actually does have something to do with the recent Al-Qaeda corpse. Hit the jump for more.

The script is about an unsuccessful mission to kill Bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks. Oddly enough, the film was making steady headway in recent weeks. Megan Ellison (True Grit) was interested in funding the flick and as recently as this past Friday, Joel Edgerton (Animal Kingdom) was being courted to play the lead role. Before Bin Laden’s death, the film would have had a downer ending that would have served as a somber reminder of the scumbag’s freedom. Now the ending of the film has become celebratory and every audience member knows that while the mission portrayed in the film failed, a team of Navy SEALs eventually busted into Bin Laden’s compound, shot him in the head, and dumped his body into the ocean.

But is that the story Bigelow wants to tell? A story where Bin Laden is still free hammers home the point about the futility of the war on terror and how deeply 9/11 changed our country. That story loses its power when it has the closure that is invaluable to the families of Bin Laden’s victims, but lacks the moral complexity that sticks with audiences. Obviously, I’d rather Bin Laden be dead and have a movie not get made, but I also understand why Bigelow may want to move on.

It’s also not the only Bin Laden project on the market. While Kill Bin Laden seems to be influenced by a failed mission to assassinate the Al-Qaeda leader, Paramount’s adaptation of Gary Bernsten’s book Jawbreaker, is actually about a 2001 mission to kill Bin Laden during the opening states of the war in Afghanistan. That’s not to mention all of the Bin Laden projects likely to flood Hollywood as various publications gather details and write stories about this weekend’s successful mission.

And it’s possible that Bigelow and Boal may shift their focus to that mission. Risky Business reports that “Bigelow and Boal are digesting the news and will spend the week figuring out their next move. We can be sure that Boal will be using his extensive intelligence connections to get the inside dope on the mission.” While there may be a surplus of Kill Bin Laden-type projects about to go into development, I’m sure that Bigelow and Boal’s reputation and talent will give them an edge.

-Joey's Two Cents: I'm very interested to see what happens...thoughts?

A couple of Osama Bin Laden related film projects could be hot commodities now...

...according to Deadline:

I've learned that Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow in recent weeks has been preparing and starting to cast an indie movie with the working title Kill Bin Laden while another movie project about the hunt for the Al Queda terrorist leader at a major Hollywood studio stalled back in 2006. Given tonight's startling news, it's clear that these may be the timeliest film projects in recent Hollywood history. And judging from tonight's showbiz phone calls coming into to Deadline about Bin Laden's death, I wouldn't be surprised if the movie studios are anxious to bring these projects to the big screen as soon as possible updated with the story behind tonight's successful military mission. Have you seen those spontaneous cheering crowds that formed tonight outside Washington DC's White House and in NYC's Times Square as well as around major American cities and small towns? If a patriotic film about this subject matter can tap into these feelings of first helpless horror and then widespread frustration and then successful closure, it could be a real winner at the box office.

Bigelow and Mark Boal, her collaborator on The Hurt Locker, have been mobilizing their film to go into production as their followup to that Best Picture Academy Award winner. Their movie as planned was based on an earlier unsuccessful mission to try to kill the Al Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attack on America as he hid in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But now they've certainly got a celebratory ending to that dramatic story with tonight's announcement that the U.S. conducted a military operation that killed Bin Laden. Mind you, reps for Bigelow have told me previously that this movie isn't specifically about the Al Qaeda leader. A lot of details about this film are stilll sketchy and secret, but I've heard that Megan Ellison, daughter of Oracle chief Larry Ellison, is ready to fund it. I heard as recently as Friday that Bigelow and Boal were courting Joel Edgerton for the lead actor. Edgerton had been on the short list for two Universal Pictures movie projects in the works, The Bourne Legacy and also Snow White And The Huntsman.

Meanwhile, back in 2006, Paramount Pictures optioned Jawbreaker, a book by U.S. intelligence operative Gary Berntsen about the December 2001 American-led military mission to hunt and kill Bin Laden right during the opening stages of the 9/11-prompted invasion of Afghanistan which the author as the CIA pointman had helped coordinate with Special Operations Forces. The heavily vetted book detailed how close those forces came to finding and executing Bin Laden in the rugged mountains of Tora Bora until they were pulled back after a decision was made to let Pakistan tribal leaders lead the search -- a decision which experts felt helped Bin Laden get away. The studio hired The Path To 9/11 scribe Cyrus Nowrasteh to rewrite a first draft by Berntsen's co-author Ralph Pezzullo, and Oliver Stone had eyed it as a follow-up to his film World Trade Center. But the project stalled. I've learned that, when Stone's movie version of the book didn't work out, Paramount discussed using the hunt for Bin Laden subject matter for a relaunch of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan character made famous in books and movies like The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, Clear And Present Danger, and The Sum Of All Fears. But that plan stalled as well.

-Joey's Two Cents: This is certainly an historical moment that will be documented in cinema, so I'd like to see Bigelow get a crack at it, but that's just me...thoughts?