HARRISON FORD, ANTHONY HOPKINS TO STAR IN THRILLER ‘OFFICIAL SECRETS’

30/01/2016 - PAUL BETTANY, NATALIE DORMER, MARTIN FREEMAN, ANTHONY HOPKINS and HARRISON FORD have joined the espionage thriller OFFICIAL SECRETS.

Elizabeth Fowler is producing. Justin Chadwick will direct, based on the book “The Spy Who Tried To Stop A War: Katherine Gun and The Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion.” The screenplay is written by Sara and Gregory Bernstein.

The Solution Entertainment Group’s Lisa Wilson and Myles Nestel are executive producing and handling the financing and international sales at the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin. UTA Independent Film Group packaged the project and represents domestic rights.

The film is slated to begin shooting in May in the U.K. The story is set in 2003 in the months before the Iraq War.

Dormer will play a British intelligence officer and Bettany will portray a British newspaper reporter. Her character reveals a secret illegal NSA spy operation against the UN Security Council designed to ensure passage of a resolution for war.

Her arrest following the leak makes headlines and the reporter’s efforts to gain the evidence to free her unearths a shocking plot that puts both of their lives in jeopardy.

Freeman will be playing Peter Edwards, the foreign affairs editor at the newspaper.

Hopkins is playing a retired U.K. general and Ford a CIA agent.

Chadwick recently directed “Tulip Fever,” starring Christoph Waltz and Alicia Vikander for release this year by The Weinstein Company. He also directed “Mandela: A Long Walk to Freedom,” starring Idris Elba, and “The Other Boleyn Girl.”

Fonte: Dave McNary, www.variety.com