I had to quickly go in and update the first part of my Kill Bin Laden was out of date almost as soon as I hit publish.
First arrived news from Variety that Joel Edgerton (pictured) will indeed take a role in the film after being on the rumored list for most of the film’s pre-production, giving the Aussie actor two major releases within one week of one another in December as he also stars in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, which opens on Christmas Day.
Additionally, Deadline reports Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life, The Debt), Mark Strong (The Guard, Green Lantern) and Edgar Ramirez (Carlos) are also in negotiations to join the ensemble cast.
The film, which is set for a December 19 release as a deliberate move by Sony to steer clear of the Presidential Elections, focuses on the black ops mission to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, which culminated in his death during a high-stakes raid on his compound in Pakistan. Bigelow is re-teaming with The Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal and the two have been developing the project since 2008.
As an interesting side note, the Pentagon is going to be investigating charges made by Rep Peter King that Bigelow and Boal somehow got inside information about the mission from the Obama Administration in preparing the script.
Also, the addition of Chastain to the production means her role opposite Tom Cruise in Oblivion is now up in the air unless schedules can be worked out.
Kill Bin Laden is expected to go into production next month and several roles are yet to be cast, including a female reporter embedded with the SEAL 6 team.
