Oliver Stone Will Oliver Stone the Snowden Story
Oliver Stone earned his reputation for a conspiracy-laden view of American history on the big screen, so it's not so surprising that he has been tapped to direct the Edward Snowden movie.
.Oliver Stone earned his reputation for a conspiracy-laden view of American history on the big screen, so it's not so surprising that he has been tapped to direct the Edward Snowden movie.
The Guardian reports Stone will direct the Edward Snowden movie based on The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man, a book published this year by Guardian journalist Luke Harding. The book received rave reviews. Harding, with help from other Guardian journalists who reported NSA stories based on Snowden's leaks, will serve as story and production consultants. Stone and his regular business partner, Moritz Borman, will produce.
The movie will follow Snowden's quest from working for the NSA, to leaking all of the agency's secrets to Glenn Greenwald and other journalists, to the ensuing shitstorm fallout, to Snowden's fleeing the country and his trip around the world.
This means we're set to receive two movies about the quest to leak NSA documents from two very different sources. Sony Pictures acquired the rights to the other Snowden movie, written by Greenwald and overseen by the James Bond producers. Stone's movie will surely have a different take on the events.
Stone's reputation for moving fast and freely with historical accuracy makes him an intriguing choice to helm a Snowden movie. American history is definitely Stone's preferred domain. This is director of Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, World Trade Center, Nixon, and W after all. And he's a self-professed Snowden fan, of course. "Snowden is a hero to me," Stone said last year. "He revealed secrets that we should all know, that the United States has repeatedly violated the fourth amendment." But Stone is also, you know, a little off-kilter. Do we not remember his conspiracy-loaded telling of the JFK assassination in JFK? What will his version of the Snowden story look like? Will our bespectacled nerd stroll out of the NSA offices sticking it to the man, perhaps with a sawed-off shotgun? Hopefully! I mean, not really, but still. This will be bonkers.
(Those glasses do look very on trend and kinda seem like something Snowden would wear.) The Wire cannot wait for "Oliver Stone's vision" to tackle the Snowden story.