Julian Assange Calls Bill Condon's Biopic The Fifth Estate A Massive Propadanda Attack

Benedict Cumberbatch certainly looks the part in The Fifth Estate, in which he is playing notorious journalist Julian Assange, but apparently his subject is none too happy about the film. On Wednesday night Assange spoke during an Oxford Union debate via videolink and took part of his time to slam the upcoming movie, which is being directed by Oscar winning filmmaker Bill Condon.

According to Deadline, when the subject turned to the new DreamWorks film Assange called the project a "massive propaganda attack on WikiLeaks and the character of my staff." He claims to have read a copy of the script - though offered no evidence that he has one - and said that the project will be “fanning the flames” of international conflict due to the fact that the movie reportedly begins "inside a military complex in Iran with the suggestion a nuclear bomb is being built."

Production on the movie only began earlier this week, the studio also announcing that it will be coming out right in the heart of this year's Oscar race on November 15th of this year. In addition to Cumberbatch the film also stars Daniel Brühl, Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Peter Capaldi, Dan Stevens, Alicia Vikander and Carice van Houten.

It's interesting that this would happen now, as just last week Prince Albert of Monaco and the rest of the royal family denounced the upcoming biopic Grace of Monaco, saying that the story is "pointlessly glamorized and contains important historical inaccuracies as well as scenes of pure fiction." I guess now is not the time to be in the business of making biopics.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.