It certainly has all the right ingredients for a movie. Earlier this year, cargo ship captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by a group of Somali pirates after they took control of his vessel, the Maesrk Alabama.
It was the first time an American registered vessel had been successfully seized by pirates since the 1800s, but while the crew managed to take back control of the ship, the pirates escaped with Phillips. However rather than paying the ransom, the US sent in a team of four Navy SEALs to rescue the captain.
Not long after it happened, Sony Pictures picked up the rights to the story, and they’ve also now optioned Captain Phillips’s upcoming memoir, A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs and Five Dangerous Days, which is due to be published next April. To get work on the films version started, they’ve also hired a writer for the film, with Variety reporting that Billy Ray has been handed the assignment. Ray has plenty of experience with thrillers, having worked on the likes of State Of Play, Flightplan and Breach.
Michael De Luca, Kevin Spacey, Dana Brunetti and Scott Rudin are producing the movie, but there’s no news yet on when they’re hoping to get the film into cinemas.