First Looks at Jeremy Renner as Gary Webb in 'Kill the Messenger'

As we recently saw in the tepid Wikileaks thriller The Fifth Estate, the balance between national security and transparency is a hot button issue that Hollywood has really latched on to. And part of that comes the occasionally harsh treatment by the government on whistleblowers and journalists, such as Pultizer Prize-winning writer Gary Webb who dared to challenge the CIA. The story of what happened to him was ripe for the big screen treatment, which is why Michael Cuesta and Jeremy Renner are telling it in Kill the Messenger.

The first image of Renner as Gary Webb have been released by USA Today, well ahead of its release some time next year. Directed by Cuesta with Peter Landesman (Parkland) adapting Webb's book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion and Nick Schou's Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb, the film centers on how the journalist's life was ruined by the CIA after exposing their connection to cocaine and arms dealing in Nicaragua. Basically they smeared him publicly to the point where his career and family life was destroyed, leading to Webb making a tragic decision.

Kill the Messenger co-star Rosemarie DeWitt, Andy Garcia, Lucas Hedges, Tim Blake Nelson, Robert Patrick, Barry Pepper, Oliver Platt, Michael Sheen, Paz Vega, Michael Kenneth Williams and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Expect Focus Features to put some Oscar muscle behind this one next year.