Home Entertainment Ben Affleck might be heading back to Boston for the Battle of BUNKER HILL

Ben Affleck might be heading back to Boston for the Battle of BUNKER HILL

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Ben Affleck 2.0 sure does love his hometown of Boston. Ever since upgrading himself from so-so actor to award winning director, Affleck has shown quite the affinity for the Massachusetts state capital, with Gone Baby Gone and The Town both being set there. And though Argo was set in Tehran, that’s sort of like Boston, just with less small arms fire and an easier to understand accent.

But now it looks like Affleck may be heading back to his Bostonian roots, way waaaay back, to kick off a revolution.

Deadline reports that Warner Bros has snapped up the film rights to Nathaniel Philbrick’s soon to be released non-fiction historical drama novel, “Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution”, for an undisclosed six-figure sum. And while nothing has been confirmed yet, they want it to be a directing vehicle for Affleck, who is apparently also quite interested in helming the feature film. HisArgo writer Chris Terrio would also be brought on board to produce the screenplay for Bunker Hill.

As to what that screenplay would actually be about, here’s the official synopsis for Philbrick’s novel:

Boston in 1775 is an island city occupied by British troops after a series of incendiary incidents by patriots who range from sober citizens to thuggish vigilantes. After the Boston Tea Party, British and American soldiers and Massachusetts residents have warily maneuvered around each other until April 19, when violence finally erupts at Lexington and Concord.

In June, however, with the city cut off from supplies by a British blockade and Patriot militia poised in siege, skirmishes give way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It would be the bloodiest battle of the Revolution to come, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.

Philbrick brings a fresh perspective to every aspect of the story. He finds new characters, and new facets to familiar ones. The real work of choreographing rebellion falls to a thirty-three year old physician named Joseph Warren who emerges as the on-the-ground leader of the Patriot cause and is fated to die at Bunker Hill.

Others in the cast include Paul Revere, Warren’s fiancé the poet Mercy Scollay, a newly recruited George Washington, the reluctant British combatant General Thomas Gage and his more bellicose successor William Howe, who leads the three charges at Bunker Hill and presides over the claustrophobic cauldron of a city under siege as both sides play a nervy game of brinkmanship for control.

With passion and insight, Philbrick reconstructs the revolutionary landscape – geographic and ideological – in a mesmerizing narrative of the robust, messy, blisteringly real origins of America.

While it sounds like this could be on a scale that Affleck has certainly never tackled before, it is a natural progression for him, as all his films have been upping the stakes and cast as they went along. And judging by how he’s handled everything thus far, only a fool would still be betting against him and his trophy cabinet full of Oscars, Golden Globes and other rare metal paperweights.

It’s thought that if Affleck takes the job, that he would tackle it straight after wrapping up his next directing gig, an adaption of the Dennis Lehane novel They Live By Night, which is a Prohibition Era mob drama set in – where else? – Boston.

Last Updated: March 20, 2013

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