Spielberg To Oversee Latest WikiLeaks Film Incarnation

One of the hottest news items in the past year has undoubtedly been Julian Assange. Even if you don’t know who he is or what he did with WikiLeaks, you’ve surely heard his name or seen him on the tabloid covers while waiting in like at the grocery store. Assange’s life has been chronicled in the book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy by his former collaborators at The Guardian and that book has been optioned by none other than Spielberg-headed Dreamworks, according to the Guardian.

The book doesn’t just focus on Assange’s life revealing government secrets, but also tells his childhood story and builds from there into his current life awaiting extradition to Sweden to face sexual abuse allegations although he has yet to be charged with a crime. The Guardian makes a great point that this story is far from over and thus has no hard ending like most films have, but that won’t stop them from making one up.

Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger had this to say about what to expect from the film:

It's Woodward and Bernstein meets Stieg Larsson meets Jason Bourne. Plus the odd moment of sheer farce and, in Julian Assange, a compelling character who goes beyond what any Hollywood scriptwriter would dare to invent.

That sounds interesting in and of itself, but I can almost guarantee that Assange has never had armed men crash into his apartment through a fourth story window whom he had to fight off using nothing but a ball point pen. Another thing I’m sure they’ll have no problem making up.

The Julian Assange story is already tired. It’s not front page news anymore, there aren’t daily headlines, he’s just there until people forget about him. There are several other films vying to be the first “WikiLeaks Movie” but even when there’s a winner, there’ll be so little interest left that they’ll still lose.