In what has turned out to be very fortuitous timing (although not for Osama Bin Laden), Kathryn Bigelow now has an ending for the upcoming film she’s been planning with The Hurt Locker screenwriter, Mark Boal.
Back in December it was announced they were working on a movie that centered on a team of special ops soldiers. Now Variety has revealed that Boal, who has contacts in military intelligence and a background in investigative journalism, based his project on the exact same team that took out Bin Laden, with the screenwriter following the covert mission this whole time (as President Obama said, the mission has been in the works since last August).
The screenwriter will now rewrite the script to include the 40-minute firefight which ended in Osama Bin Laden’s death. The operation occurred at just the right time for Mark Boal, who still has time to tweak the script, while still ensuring the movie will be timely upon it’s released.
And I’m sure this will be perfect for conspiracy theorists, who’ll probably suggest the US knew where Osama was the whole time, and only killed him as a favour to Bigelow so she had an ending for her movie.
It’s not entirely certain when the movie will shoot, as while a summer start is still likely, producers are waiting to see how the Arab world reacts to the latest events before committing, and it has also meant a planned loaction scouting trip to Afghanistan next week has had to be postponed.