As Sully‘s well-deserved box-office success continues, Clint Eastwood begins moving towards his next directorial effort — and, yes, it’s another story of American exceptionalism, but probably more along the lines of his last feature than the controversy-stirring American Sniper. THR gives word that the project is Impossible Odds, a kidnapping tale based on the memoirs of Jessica Buchanan, Erik Landemalm, and Anthony Flacco. Buchanan, an aid worker in Somalia, was, alongside a colleague “sold out by their escort and protector” and kidnapped by land pirates in October of 2011, then held captive for 93 days while her husband, Landemalm, sought to have her rescued, a task eventually completed by SEAL Team 6.
Brian Helgeland (previously of the director’s Blood Work and Mystic River) will handle writing duties, which includes, among other things, the unique task of giving an Eastwood picture (or an Eastwood anything) some positive stance on Barack Obama, being that he carried out the order to rescue Buchanan and her co-worker. I could turn this into a spiel about the complexities of his politics and art, but I’ll leave this really strong piece to that — an essential read if you’re at all interested in him as a figure and filmmaker. How might Impossible Odds continue the narrative? It could very well just be a rousing rescue tale, and that would be fine. If Sully evinced anything, it’s that Eastwood, sometimes he alone, continues making precisely the kind of drama Hollywood can’t afford to forget.