There is no better time than the present to move forward on a film about Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder and general rabble-rouser who has garnered an unbelievable amount of media attention both for his legitimate groundbreaking work (leaking state secrets on the Internet for all to see) and his more specious activities (facing rape charges in Sweden). Biographies of Assange and accounts of Wikileaks's actions already abound, and the movie deals haven't' come long after-- just two weeks ago producers optioned the rights to The Most Dangerous Man in the World, a biography by an Australian reporter. Now a slew of other details are coming together too.
One of them, as chronicled by Deadline, involves The Hurt Locker writer Mark Boal, and will be based on Bill Keller's account in The New York Times of the paper's work with Assange in publishing leaks. They're calling it The Boy Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, though in the paper it bore the much more generic name "The Times's Dealings With Julian Assange." It's unsure if Boal will also write the film or just produce it, but he's involved either way.
Separately DreamWorks is considering optioning Inside Wikileaks, a book due in mid-February written by a former partner of Assange's. Then there's Assange's own memoir, which Paul Greengrass is considering, and a documentary planned by Alex Gibney. The documentary could likely go forward no matter what happens with the narrative films-- Gibney's Casino Jack wound up being far more successful that George Hickenlooper's take on the same material-- but it's unlikely that more than one Assange biopic is going to get off the ground. Race you to the starting line, everybody!
