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Just as Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was found not guilty of aiding the enemy—and guilty of five counts of violating the Espionage Act and five counts of theft—word has now come out that documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney is already at work on a feature film about the Army intelligence analyst.
Gibey, who won an Oscar in 2008 for his military torture documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, and his producing partner Marc Shmuger have optioned the rights to the book Private: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks, and the Biggest Exposure of Official Secrets in American History by Denver Nicks with the intent to adapt it for a dramatic feature film, according to Variety. Currently the pair are looking for writers to adapt the book.
Gibney is clearly well-suited to making a film about Manning; the director's last effort was the lauded Sundance documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks and according to statements he made to Variety he's passionate about the Manning case. That case culminated yesterday after a three-year legal ordeal and left Manning, who provided WikiLeaks with a massive trove of government documents and video, looking at a maximum sentence of more than 100 years behind bars. Manning had already pleaded guilty to many lesser charges before the trail began in June and took "full responsibility" for providing the classified information to the secret-spilling site.
In finding Manning guilty on the Espionage Act and theft counts, the judge—Col. Denise Lind—rejected the government's claim that Manning's Army training would lead the intelligence officer to assume the leaked information would be likely to reach Al-Qaeda operatives, but she also ruled the whistleblower would have reason to believe the leaks would harm the U.S. even if that wasn't the intention.
"I hope that Judge Lind will be lenient in her sentence, taking into consideration Manning’s intent, his willingness to take responsibility for his actions," Gibney told Variety. "And the outrageously abusive treatment he has received at the hands of the Obama Administration."
What's probably most interesting about the Manning movie news is that Gibney is going after a dramatic feature film and not a documentary. Between 2010 and 2012 the filmmaker turned out four docs a year, many of them well-received, so it will be fascinating to see what he does with a Manning film, especially since it's still based on real-life events.
Even though it's likely still a few years out, Gibney's film will be in good company amidst more than a few films about the WikiLeaks case. Director Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, is slated to hit theaters Oct. 18. And in addition to Gibney's We Steal Secrets, last year the film Underground premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Back in 2011 Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal partnered with producer Megan Ellison to option the New York Times Magazine story "The Boy Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" for a film that's still in development. However, all those films have focused largely on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, so a film looking at the life of Manning could serve as a much different perspective on the story of WikiLeaks and of whistleblowing broadly—especially now that Edward Snowden's National Security Agency leaks are keeping the issue very much in the forefront.
Obviously it will be a long time before Gibney's Manning flick comes to theaters, but it's amazing filmmakers are already developing movies for a story that is still very much happening right now—the sentencing phase of Manning's court-martial began today.
