Bale And Zahn To The Rescue

Ok, we understand it's far too early in the morning or this, but get yourself your strong wake-up drink of choice, and pay attention. Christian Bale and Steve Zahn have both signed on to star in the next feature film from Werner Herzog, Rescue Dawn. Yes, it sounds like a straight to video action movie. No, that wasn't the hard part. The mildly mind-bending spin on this is that the action / drama is based on a documentary made by Herzog himself in 1997, which was called Little Dieter Needs To Fly. Both films are dealing (though we presume in entirely different tenses of time) with the story of Dieter Dengler, who was a fighter pilot for the U.S. Airforce during the Vietman War. Shot down over Laos and taken as a P.O.W., Dengler wasn't having any of it, so organised and executed an (presumabley action packed) escape for himself and a small group of other prisoners, one of whom was Duane Martin. There's your Steve Zahn character. It's another prize notch on Bale's 'director' belt (Spielberg, Nolan, Malick, etc.), and a major change of pace for Zahn. Hertzog is the guy who famously made a film about a meglomanic opera lover dragging a riverboat over a mountain by, you guessed it, dragging a riverboat over a mountain, though we're sure the boys know only too well what they're lgtting themselves into. We're hopeful that there's a role for Chuck Norris in there somewhere (c'mon