So it’s Jason Clarke of TV’s The Chicago Code – and not Joel Edgerton, as was widely rumored – who’ll be the first man cast for Kathryn Bigelow’s as-yet-untitled Osama Bin Laden thriller. Deadline reports that the Hurt Locker director has tapped Clarke for her terrorist-hunting team, and is circling other high-profile actors and actresses to join the ranks of a feature she intends to film early next year.

Though Bigelow was one of the first filmmakers to announce a military drama surrounding the hunt for Bin Laden – getting on the proverbial board long before Bin Laden was captured and killed by U.S. forces – she’s now racing against competing projects trying to get a Bin Laden picture into theaters. She’ll reunite with Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Boal to recount the efforts of SEAL Team Six, who tracked the Taliban leader to Pakistan and eliminated him in his private residence.

And who, according to Deadline, might join Clarke? While I’m not ready to count out Edgerton (who’d be ideal for a role based on his look alone), Bigelow reportedly is eyeing Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Rooney Mara and Edgerton’s Warrior co-star Tom Hardy for the film. That’s a mighty impressive wish list, though the site admits that scheduling could be an issue for a number of those castmembers. As for Clarke, audiences soon will be able to see him opposite Shia LaBeouf in The Wettest County in the World, which also happens to co-star Tom Hardy . He also has a part opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, currently filming in Australia.