As Bradley Cooper receives acclaim for helming and starring in his upcoming film Maestro, the actor has lined up a new project called Best of Enemies. The movie has become the latest of upcoming book adaptations nabbed by Hollywood, and it will re-team Cooper with Christian Bale years after the pair of great actors starred in American Hustle together.
Best Of Enemies is a spy thriller that was just snatched up by Amazon and MGM Studios, per Deadline. The movie is about an unlikely friendship that forms between a CIA agent and KGB agent during the Cold War. It will not only reunite American Hustle’s two stars, but it also a host of filmmakers behind the scenes of the 2013 flick, including its co-writer Eric Warren Singer, who is set to write the script, and producer Charles Roven in the mix.
Amazon and MGM reportedly fought for the rights to the film alongside eight other studios, notably duking it out with Warner Bros. before winning the bid. The studios are set to pay the American Hustle writer, who also notably co-wrote 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, in the neighborhood of $5 million. With those points in mind, it sounds like Best Of Enemies could be a huge movie! Plus, it’s apparently possible that Cooper could direct after previously helming A Star Is Born and Maestro.
Directed By: David O. Russell
Written By: David O. Russell & Eric Warren Singer
Starring: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, Jack Huston, Michael Peña, Shea Wingham
Rating: R, for for pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence
Runtime: 138 minutes
Where To Stream: Paramount+ Subscription
The film is based on 2018’s Best of Enemies: The Last Great Spy Story of the Cold War, which is based on the true story of CIA maverick Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko as they become the best of friends rather than enemies. Cooper will play Platt and Bale will play the Russian agent. The story takes place in 1978, and it also involves the unlikely pair solving some of the most famous spy stories of the 20th century.
Interestingly enough, Best of Enemies shares a similar time period to American Hustle, which was set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, though David O. Russell's film focused on an FBI Abscam operation rather than the ongoings of the CIA and KGB. When American Hustle came out a decade ago, it was nominated for a whopping 10 Oscars, including nods for both Cooper and Bale. Although it didn’t take home any prizes, clearly the two actors have been itching to work with one another and have finally found the right project to do so.
Cooper is also set to work with Steven Spielberg on a remake of the 1968 Steve McQueen film, Bullitt. The actor is also reportedly in production on another directing effort with Will Arnett called Is This Thing On? Bale on the other hand is part of the English cast of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, and he is set to star in The Church of the Living Dangerously based on the Vanity Fair article of the same name.
As Best of Enemies gets moving at Amazon and MGM, make sure to check the 2023 movie schedule so you can see Bale in The Boy and the Heron and Cooper in Maestro, both in theaters now.
