UPDATE: Variety has learned that Boal was basing his script on the very team of U.S. troops who wound up killing bin Laden yesterday, a move that can only be counted as really damn lucky. Production is set to start this summer, and Boal is now tweaking his script to include what's obviously a killer new ending. There's lots more to read in the Variety story linked above.

Since winning the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars in 2010 for The Hurt Locker Kathryn Bigelow has been weighing her next project very, very carefully-- it makes sense, given that the film came close to getting stuck on DVD before becoming the model of an indie success story. And though she's been prepping the drug war drama Triple Frontier, with Tom Hanks set to star, she and her collaborator Mark Boal have been planning another, smaller project to make before then. A project that was recently said to be about "current news items." A project that is probably about killing Osama bin Laden.

Yes, if Deadline has their details straight, Bigelow and Boal's small project is called Kill Bin Laden, though Bigelow's reps have somewhat confusingly said that "this movie isn't specifically about the Al Qaeda leader." They've got funding in place from financier Megan Ellison, and as recently as last Friday Deadline was hearing that Joel Edgerton-- that very much in-demand actor-- could be in line to play the lead.

Granted, everything we know about this project comes from before bin Laden's death, and it's likely if not guaranteed that Bigelow will have to tweak the film as a result, or could even give up on the project thanks to the real-life developments. But it's also very possible that the first cinematic response to Bin Laden's death will come from Kathryn Bigelow, a filmmaker we can count on to take the job responsibly and almost definitely have something intelligent to say. Just think-- Brett Ratner may have also woken up this morning with a great idea for a movie about killing bin Laden. It's worth all of us hoping that Bigelow does in fact get there first.