Of Course Alex Gibney is Already Working on a Bradley Manning Movie

By  · Published on July 31st, 2013

It should come as little surprise that, in the wake of Bradley Manning being found guilty on charges that could add up to over a hundred years in military prison, filmmaker Alex Gibney is ahead of the curve on developing a feature film.

According to Variety, the Oscar-winning director is following up We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks with a movie focused on the other side of the Wikileaks coin. He and producing partner Marc Shmuger have been developing it since gaining the rights to Denver Nicks’ “Private: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks, and the Biggest Exposure of Official Secrets in American History” last year. The pair are looking for a screenwriter.

In the meantime, filmmakers are all over Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Beyond Gibney’s documentary, there’s also Bill Condon’s Fifth Estate and a forthcoming potential work from Mark Boal based on the extensive investigation done by the New York Times’ Bill Heller (who was pranked last year when Wikileaks faked a supportive article, pretending it was written by the columnist). Plus, who knows what Aaron Sorkin and The Newsroom will do with all of this.

Stranger than fiction, we’re getting our current events parroted back to us with fervency. It’s still unclear whether that’s a good thing, but at least some of the best storytellers in the business are the ones taking the tasks.

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