Ben Affleck To Direct Middle East Political Thriller
Written by: FFT Webmaster | July 13th, 2011
Actor Ben Affleck continues to broaden his palette as a film director (GONE BABY GONE, THE TOWN) with the announcement of his latest project, which will also star himself in the title role. ARGO is a political thriller scripted by Chris Terrio that will tell the true so-strange-it’s-true story of how the CIA, with help from Hollywood, used a fake movie project to smuggle hostages out of Teheran during the 1979 hostage crisis. The film is based on a “Wired” magazine article by Joshua Bearman, published in 2007 and titled “How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran.” Affleck has been scouting locations in the Middle East for the project in which he will co-star with Emmy winner Brian Cranston (BREAKING BAD), Alan Arkin (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) and John Goodman (THE BIG LEBOWSKI). George Clooney and Grant Heslov are producing through their Smoke House shingle along with David Klawans. The film will be released by Warner Brothers in late 2012.