Oliver Stone has never been known to shy away from politics in his film, and later this year he will continue this tradition by making a movie about one of the most polarizing people in the world: Edward Snowden. The film won't be out until the end of the year, but the first trailer has found its way online, and you can watch it below:
This first look at Snowden sadly doesn't contain any actual footage from the film, instead choosing to simply promote the movie with the true story angle, but it still is a pretty cool tease. The movie's titular figure has a story that's certainly worth telling on the big screen, and it's all wrapped up with a tagline that will surely start some murmurs:
The very end of this trailer shows off the impressive cast list that the movie has lined up, but it's surprising that we don't even get a slight glimpse at Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden. In previously released images we've seen, it appears as though the guy has undergone an impressive transformation for his role in the docudrama, and you'd think that the marketing team behind the film would want to show him off.
Based on a script by written by Kieran Fitzgerald and Oliver Stone, and adapted from the book "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story Of The World’s Most Wanted Man" by Guardian reporter Luke Harding, Snowden will follow its titular subject on a journey to become one of the most important whistle-blowers in history. In 2013, he was working as a government contractor within the National Security Agency, and wound up leaking classified information regarding their surveillance programs. Charged with theft and violating the Espionage Act, he was forced to flee the country and currently resides in Russia.
Oliver Stone and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are the big headliners for Snowden, but the movie has an impressive supporting cast that also includes Shailene Woodley, Nicolas Cage, Timothy Olyphant, Scott Eastwood, Zachary Quinto, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Rhys Ifans, and Joely Richardson. We fully expect it to be in the Oscar conversation as we get towards the end of the year, but we'll only know its real potential when it hits theaters on Christmas Day.
