Steven Spielberg‘s production company, Dreamworks, purchased the screen rights to two books about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange yesterday.
The buying of the exclusive rights to both WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, written by Guardian journalists and Inside Wikileaks, by one of Assange’s team, has led to speculation that Dreamworks may be trying to capitalise off the success of that other Internet-related film, The Social Network, which was released to favourable reviews both commercially and critically in 2010.
According to the Hollywood experts at over at Deadline, if Spielberg decides to make a Wikileaks movie in the same vein as David Fincher‘s Facebook saga, he can do that convenient thing called ‘fictionlising’. That’s where the story may be based on fact but most of it is eventually made up to translate better onto the big screen. This also frees him from having to do a rights deal with Assange – also convenient, because the man is currently appealing his extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.
We’re not holding our breath for another Justin Timberlake role.
via Techradar.
Title Image by Peter Macdiarmid via Getty
