Sunday, April 24, 2011

Marc Shmuger and Alex Gibney (Universal) Wikileaks Movie

On January 21, 2011, news broke that Marc Shmuger and Alex Gibney would be making a new movie about Wikileaks under the Universal Studios banner.  The pair announced at Sundance that the studio optioned a book and would be co-producing the movie.

This is an interesting twist for Universal in that "big uni" (rather than the more documentary-oriented Focus Features) is producing the project.  It suggests that the still-unnamed Wikileaks documentary will get teh big-budget treatment, rather than just an indie-style gloss.  It also means that the politics of the piece will be tied up in Universal's politics, for better or worse.

This is Marc Shmuger's first project after ending his term as head of Universal, and many are curious as to whether his rebound will be successful.  On the other hand, Alex Gibney is coming off a series of successes (like Client 9, his story of Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace).


Impact Rating: TBD
Politics Rating: ???

Timing Rating: Later

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