I would be stupid if I said I was surprised at this, I'm not even slightly annoyed as I usually get when Hollywood jumps all over the latest headline and floods our theaters with their take. Why you ask? Well, it's simple, SEALs are now and have always been the coolest of the cool and baddest of the bad when it comes to the greatest military in the world (that would be the US military....really shouldn't have to say that). Add to that the awesome code name for the crew that took out Bin Laden, EAL TEAM SIX, Tom Clancy couldn't have made a more made for movie name, and you have box office gold in the works. Think back to every action movie you've seen, now I'll bet that the hero in at least 6 out of 10 movies put in work with the SEALs at some point, Casey Ryback in Under Siege, Jim Street in S.W.A.T., G.I. Jane, and that's without mentioning the severely underrated flick titled Navy SEALs with Micheal Biehn and Charlie Sheen. Okay I'll admit that's not the MOST impressive list ever but it's 6am...my brain is barely at half speed this early.
To sum it up, SEALs were made for movies. If war was a high school they would be the kid with the badass '69 Chevelle, leather jacket, and a fresh pack of Marlboro Reds...you know they guy you think more than twice about messing with.
So what's actually coming to theaters? Well you have Katheryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) doing the real story behind SEAL TEAM SIX, Disney's thrown their hat...errr, mouse ears (?) in the ring and is planning a STS movie, even Peter Berg has stated that he's formatting a screen version of Marcus Luttrell's book Lone Survivor, a book which follows a SEAL team in Afghanistan circa 2005 as they hunt down an Al Qaeda top man.
Bear in mind while you read this that these are all the serious major player movies. Which means it is no representation of the 100's of popcorn action movie scripts floating around Hollywood right now which will be picked up, changed to include SEAL teams and shot just in time for 2012....hell I wouldn't be surprised to see the direct to video guys with something on the shelf before summer's out.
Thanks to JoBlo for the inspiration and the men and women of the US Armed Forces for the right to say whatever the hell I want.
SIDE NOTE: Does anyone else find it funny that Peter Berg is this amazing director...I mean this guy starred in Corky Romano for God's sake.
