The actor has reportedly agreed to take the lead role in the NSA whistleblower movie about Edward Snowden. Although the negotiations have not yet begun, both Gordon-Levitt and Snowden are keen on making it happen. Apparently, the production on The Snowden Files (the movie is titled after the book) is expected to start late in 2014 or in early in 2015.
The film is written and directed by Oliver Stone and will be based on two books, The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man and Time of the Octopus. It is known that Oliver Stone recently picked up the screen rights to the latter book after getting the former in June.
Everyone knows that Edward Snowden’s revelations lifted the lid on the practice of the mass government surveillance, which sparked a global furor. The former NSA contractor has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, which was then extended for another couple years, but Snowden still faces a 30-year prison sentence if he returns to the United States.
The Snowden Files movie could compete with a rival project known as No Place to Hide after the book by Glenn Greenwald. The latter is the freelance journalist who received thousands of classified documents from Edward a year ago. No Place to Hide is being brought to cinemas by James Bond producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, but it seems that the Stone version will likely to arrive on the big screen first.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 33, is an actor who has successfully combined turns in critically acclaimed genre fare like Rian Johnson’s Looper and Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises with the roles in indie comedy drama fare, including 50-50, (500) Days of Summer and Don Jon. The latter was even directed by him. In addition, Gordon-Levitt will play the high wire artist Philippe Petit in forthcoming biopic The Walk, about his successful crossing of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in August 1974.
As for the director of the new movie, Oliver Stone has made a number of biographical political movies, including the one about the Kennedy assassination (JFK), the Bush administration’s “war on terror” (W), the Vietnam conflict (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven & Earth), and the Watergate break-in (Nixon).
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