Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Savages might have put a bit of a dent in Oliver Stone's ratings, but it's hard not to feel the buzz around his upcoming project, Snowden, which has just started shooting. To celebrate the start of proceedings, the film's marketing folk have released these two images of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a US Army reserve by the name of Edward Snowden.
Yes, Oliver Stone is getting political, gathering together Nicolas Cage, Zachary Quinto, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Rhys Ifans, Shailene Woodley, Timothy Olyphant and Joely Richardson (as well as Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to create his based-on-truth drama about the infamous NSA whistleblower.
Stone bought up two prime sources for his film: Time Of The Octopus, a novel by Snowden’s Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, giving him access to the story of the whistleblower who reluctantly sought asylum in Russia and had to wait to see if the country would grant it. The producers also have the option on Guardian journalist Luke Harding’s book The Snowden Files: The Inside Story Of The World’s Most Wanted Man.
Pitched as a thriller, Snowden will chart the experiences of Snowden (Gordon-Levitt), the whistleblowing National Security Agency contractor who began leaking classified documents to former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald in June 2013. Snowden, currently stuck in Russia after the US cancelled his passport, has become a polarising figure between those – such as the director himself – who consider him a patriotic hero, and those who feel he’s a traitor.
After Laura Poitras’ **Citizenfour **won the Oscar for Best Documentary in February, and with Snowden blessed with US release date of December 25 this year, it seems Stone is aiming straight at The Academy with this one. A UK release date has not yet been announced.