After taking home six Oscars last year for The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal (pictured above with producer Greg Shapiro) have been prepping their next feature. Triple Frontier (also known as Sleeping Dogs) involves the drug haven between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. The project has Tom Hanks confirmed to star and Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Christian Bale, and Will Smith all interested at one point. With a big-budget blockbuster like this taking awhile to fall together, they have some free time on their hands and have decided to use it wisely.
Variety is reporting that since Triple Frontier has “a lot of moving parts” it won’t be shooting until fall 2011. The duo have decided to pen and shoot a “international thriller” before Frontier even starts filming later this year. The details are scarce, only that it “concerns black ops and is based on a true story that has appeared in printed form.” The budget will be like The Hurt Locker, which shot for just over $10 million.
I’ve done a little research (aka hopping on Wikipedia) on recent black operations, hoping that they aren’t just taking the story from Call of Duty: Black Ops. Here are recent events that I’ve found in the last three years or so, appearing in reported form:
- In 2007, United States president George W. Bush authorized the CIA to undertake “black operations” in Iran in order to promote regime change as well as to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. [story]
- In 2007 the Central Intelligence Agency declassified secret records detailing illegal domestic surveillance, assassination plots, kidnapping, infiltration and other “black” operations undertaken by the CIA from the 1950s to the early 1970s. The secret illegal CIA activities included wiretapping of major columnists, and the surveillance of other American journalists, CIA surveillance of thousands of peace activists, and a number of CIA break-ins in the U.S. [story]
- In 2009, General Stanley McChrystal authorized “black” operations to find and kill senior terrorist and insurgent figures in Iraq during the Iraq War there. [story]
While the middle doesn’t feel recent and timely as reported, I could easily see Boal and Bigelow taking on one of the others. But, we have no idea at this time and will report on the next update. It is exciting that we will see another lower-budget exercise from the two before Frontier hits and as of now, it won’t delay it.
What do you think about Bigelow shooting another film before Triple Frontier?