It’s a tale that is still unfolding, with numerous twists and turns, as Hollywood gets ready to create a biopic on the face of Wikileaks, Julian Assange. Bill “Dreamgirls” Condon is currently in the lead to direct, and it looks like he had found his leading man to get tossed into a slammer on underage sex allegations, in the form of Jeremy Renner.
Now however, it looks like Renner may be out, with the role of Assange going to the man with a mind palace, Benedict Cumberbatch, with Joel Kinnaman in talks to play the Assange’s Watson, Daniel Domscheit-Berg.
Based on the two books written so far by Assange, Josh Singer has turned in a script, with Deadline reporting that the two actors are in talks for the film right now.
Dreamworks Pictures currently owns the film rights to two books that chronicle Assange and his Wikileaks site, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy, by David Leigh and Luke Harding, and Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange At The World’s Most Dangerous Website, written by Domscheit-Berg.
The story has all the hooks necessary for a big budget picture, from humble hacking beginnings (KOMPUTOR MAGIKS!), tohrough to his current gig as the man behind Wikileaks and its government secret-leaking shenanigans, and right now, bars.
Cumberbatch has proven his acting chops so far with various films and of course, the BBC Sherlock series, while Kinnaman made his bones in The Killing and is busy enforcing prime directives in the Robocop remake.
A good match for a controversial story? What do you think of this potential casting?
Last Updated: October 3, 2012
Kervyn Cloete
October 3, 2012 at 13:56
Benedict Cumberbatch seems to be starring in just about everything lately.