Whistleblower or traitor? That question is going to hover around guys like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden for the rest of their lives, and if there's anything Hollywood loves it's moral ambiguity. Last year we saw a handful of movies on Assange, none really performing all that well, and in a few months we'll see Jeremy Renner as whistleblower Gary Webb in Kill the Messenger, but at least that films looks like a possible awards contender. It was inevitable that we'd get a biopic on Snowden at some point, and now one is on the way from Oliver Stone. Perfect fit?
Stone is teaming up with The Guardian newspaper for an adaptation of Luke Harding's The Snowden Files. Harding is a contributor to the paper, which also had a very important part to play in helping Snowden leak what were thousands of NSA and other security documents. This would seem to be right up Stone's alley as the director of politically-charged films like Nixon, W., and JFK, and hopefully he can do the story some justice without going too far over the top as is his tendency of late. The Guardian's consulting on the project may help keep it on the right path.
Filming is to begin by the end of the year. Who do we think would make for a good Snowden?
