Cage is set to play a former U.S. Intelligence official opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the title role. This will be the Academy Award-winning actor’s second time at bat with Stone, having starred in the director’s 2005 real-life drama World Trade Center.
Snowden’s profile rose even more last night when the documentary Citizenfour won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, with director Laura Poitras thanking the exiled whistleblower onstage to great applause. “The disclosures of Edward Snowden don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself,” said Poitras.
Snowden will be written and directed by three-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone (Platoon, JFK). The script is based on the books “The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man” by Luke Harding and “Time of the Octopus” by Anatoly Kucherena. The latter book mainly deals with former information analyst Snowden’s time in Russia hoping to get asylum while the United States was demanding his extradition to potentially face jail time for leaking classified information.
The film co-stars Shailene Woodley, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Olyphant, Zachary Quinto and Melissa Leo as Poitras. Snowden is produced by Moritz Borman, Eric Kopeloff and Philip Schulz-Deyle, with production scheduled to kick off in Munich for release on December 25 by Open Road Films.
(Photo Credit: WENN)
