Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Kill Bin Laden’ film will come out on October 12, 2012!

The Playlist has the story:

Continuing to be developed well under the radar, almost to the point where we were wondering if it was still happening, Kathryn Bigelow‘s “The Hurt Locker” followup, her currently untitled Seal Team 6 flick now has a firm release date: October 12, 2012—right in the heart of awards season.

Since late last year, Bigelow and writer Mark Boal have been hard at work on the black ops thriller, the details of which, at the time, were being kept under wraps but was rumored to be about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Those rumors turned out be true but when the Al Qaeda leader was suddenly killed the spring, it was reported that Boal a former investigative reporter, shifted his research and resources and was already rewriting with a section covering the 40 minute firefight that resulted in Bin Laden’s death. Even more, Aussie actor Joel Edgerton was said to be a frontrunner for the untitled film—also referred to as “Kill Bin Laden”—and despite Columbia picking up the rights to the film, nothing has been heard on casting since. And considering Edgerton will be busy on Baz Luhrmann‘s “The Great Gatsby” this fall, we’d guess he’s no longer in the running.

Of course, any other details are being sealed (ha!) for now. But with a release date now looming just over a year away, updates should begin to trickle out soon. There is no other film slated for that weekend yet, but the film is now poised to be a major player on the fall festival circuit next year (you can bet Venice and TIFF folks are making calls now) and will be a strong contender to get Bigelow back on the podium in the Kodak Theater.

Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s Bin Laden movie will hit theaters in late 2012!

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Columbia Pictures has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s project regarding Navy Seal Team 6 and its hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

The duo behind the Oscar-winning thriller The Hurt Locker have been working on the project for some time and were eyeing a summer start when real life events -- Bin Laden’s killing by the black ops team -- overtook the
project. Boal is incorporating the latest developments into the script.

Boal and Bigelow will produce the project, along with Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures, which is financing. Greg Shapiro, who worked on Hurt Locker, is exec producing.

Production is slated to begin in the late summer. The film will be released in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the studio.

The pickup marks another timely and elevated project for Amy Pascal and Columbia's slate. After the success of The Social Network, they have proven themselves unafraid to try on dramas if the right creative people are involved.

Annapurna, meanwhile, has also been ratcheting up its slate, which has become more and more high-profile in recent months.

Joel Edgerton will star in Kathryn Bigelow's Bin Laden movie...

...according to 24 Frames:

As "The Hurt Locker" team of Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal continue to work on their Osama bin Laden movie, they've signed up their first actor.

Australian Joel Edgerton will play a special operative in the picture, said two sources familiar with the project who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss it. The actor will be part of an ensemble of male commandos.

Edgerton, who has been short-listed for a number of high-profile roles recently (including one of the leads in "The Hunger Games" and the Bourne reboot), passed on the opportunity to work opposite Kristen Stewart in "Snow White and the Huntsman" to climb aboard the Bin Laden film.

Edgerton can next be seen opposite Tom Hardy in the mixed martial arts movie "Warrior" as well as in the upcoming Disney flick "The Odd Life of Timothy Green." The untitled Bin Laden movie aims to shoot as early as this summer.

As for "Snow White," Chris Hemsworth, the star of this weekend's "Thor," is the top contender to play the titular huntsman--despite the fact that, at 27, he's not nearly as old as the character would have been had Viggo Mortensen, who was initially cast, wound up playing the part.

A person familiar with the project said Hemsworth won't play Stewart's primary love interest; that honor will go to another boy of summer. Sam Claflin, who is playing a missionary in this month's "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," will take on the role.

Does Osama Bin Laden’s death help or hurt Kathryn Bigelow’s 'Kill Bin Laden'?

From Collider:

First off, a little perspective: I am aware that the extent to which the long-awaited death of Osama Bin Laden affects movies is miniscule compared to the closure and sense of justice that death provides to those affected by Al-Qaeda’s terrorism. If a sense of closure for families that lost someone on 9/11 is a “10″, then news about a Bin Laden movie is about 0.0001. But we’re a movie news site and the death of this hated piece of shit has affected various movies in production, most notably, Kathryn Bigelow’s Kill Bin Laden.

As we’ve previously reported Bigelow and Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal want to do a smaller movie before moving on to the international drug crime drama, Triple Frontier. In January, we reported that the indie thriller was about the hunt for Bin Laden, but then Variety updated their story to say the film had nothing to do with Bin Laden. What could have led them to originally think that it did? Apparently the script is called “Kill Bin Laden”. And it actually does have something to do with the recent Al-Qaeda corpse. Hit the jump for more.

A couple of Osama Bin Laden related film projects could be hot commodities now...

...according to Deadline:

I've learned that Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow in recent weeks has been preparing and starting to cast an indie movie with the working title Kill Bin Laden while another movie project about the hunt for the Al Queda terrorist leader at a major Hollywood studio stalled back in 2006. Given tonight's startling news, it's clear that these may be the timeliest film projects in recent Hollywood history. And judging from tonight's showbiz phone calls coming into to Deadline about Bin Laden's death, I wouldn't be surprised if the movie studios are anxious to bring these projects to the big screen as soon as possible updated with the story behind tonight's successful military mission. Have you seen those spontaneous cheering crowds that formed tonight outside Washington DC's White House and in NYC's Times Square as well as around major American cities and small towns? If a patriotic film about this subject matter can tap into these feelings of first helpless horror and then widespread frustration and then successful closure, it could be a real winner at the box office.

Check out the New, Women in Cinema Series!

Written by our very own Anna Belickis, this weekly column will introduce women and their parts in our wonderful film industry that sometimes get overlooked or simply ignored. This week we focus on Academy Award Winning Director, Kathryn Bigelow! Check it out HERE.