Though Peter Berg and Kathryn Bigelow are both working on films about the Navy SEALs, specifically those charged with killing Osama bin Laden, a group of unknown actors will probably manage to get there first. Relativity Media has acquired Act of Valor, an action film made in cooperation with the Navy and directed by two former stuntmen.
Act of Valor held a number of test screenings in New York and and L.A. and recent weeks, and apparently garnered enough strong buzz to convince Relativity to pay $13 million for it-- a huge chunk of money for a movie with no actual actors. They're planning highly patriotic release dates of either Veteran's Day this November or President's Day next February for the film, which was written by 300 screenwriter Kurt Johnstad and directed by Mike "Mouse" McCoy and Scott Waugh. The actors are actual Navy SEALs, and the story follows a group of them charged with recovering a kidnapped CIA agent, "and in the process takes down a complex web of terrorist cells determined to strike America at all costs." It sounds very fast-paced and quite possibly exhausting, but a slam-dunk audiences who look for their movies to be macho above all else. And it's more than a little fascinating that these guys made an action movie in cooperation with the military without much of anyone noticing. Regardless of how the movie turns out, it's a singular kind of achievement, even if the cooperation with the military means we'll likely get a pretty one-sided take on the missions. I guess we'll have to save the nuance for Berg and Bigelow.
If you're curious to know more, our friends at The Film Stage dug up a ton of info on the movie, including some comments on the camera technology from director of photography Shane Hurlbut and some set photos.
