Remember WikiLeaks? Studios are hoping you still care enough about it to watch a movie about head honcho Julian Assange, and with this newest announcement, they’ll probably turn some heads. Deadline reports that DreamWorks has acquired the rights to two books that tell the story of the WikiLeaks scandal, and they’re now talking to Dreamgirls director Bill Condon and The Avengers star Jeremy Renner to bring it to the big screen.
There’s also the possibility that the movie could pursue independent financing, but with big names like Renner and Condon in the mix, I’m guessing DreamWorks will toss a few bucks at this project to make it happen. Renner would probably adopt an Australian accent to play Assange, the strange and mildly eccentric journalist who created WikiLeaks and caused an international commotion when he posted secret classified documents from various governments for free online.
I’m not sure how relevant this story is anymore, but there was certainly enough international attention surrounding the story to justify making a movie about it. Hopefully Condon, who recently directed the last two Twilight films, can bring us something compelling out of a decidedly “uncinematic” story; perhaps with Renner involved, we’ll get a solid performance along the lines of Hayden Christensen’s work in the underrated journalism film Shattered Glass. (Or, better yet, something like Michael Mann’s whistleblowing movie The Insider.)
