Today's key words: mess, assault, victory, defeat, capitulation, enslaught, censorship, brainwashing, subversion, espionage, theft, freedom, transparency, sex by surprise, New World Order
What about the secret list of films in development based on the current WikiLeaks debacle that has allegedly been floating around Hollywood? Apparently the list keeps growing and growing, and evidently indicates the Who, What, Where and How Much for each production's silver screen incarnation.
Mr. Julian Assange, the embattled WikiLeaks chief, who might do better with a slightly fictionalized treatment, is now destined to join the ranks of Mark Zuckerberg whose online preeminence has been brilliantly immortalized in "The Social Network" and has stoked enough critical fire to spawn more than a few creative clones.
To be sure, a superbly executed narrative feature film version of the WikiLeaks Cablegate timeline is going to unravel the Assange story with all of the nuisance and complexity it deserves, serving up several helpings of backstabbing, double crossing, sex, fear mongering, megalomania and chicanery on all sides, all of which is currently being obscured in light of the vehement worldwide call to condemn and obliterate the elusive group of cable dumpers. Period.
Studio heads and production company execs have a theory about the American public — we'd all much prefer to kick back and digest a two-hour film on the subject rather than read the actual raw cables ourselves or parse New York Times editorials on Assange, even if the cable dump has beckoned each of us to become players in our own destiny. The fractionalized accounts of Assange and Co. are not only polarizing, they're dizzying and they're making it difficult to determine whether or not we're intellectually and independently curious people or susceptible, genetically modified sheeple.
As the world continues to watch the daily cyber battle that has embroiled heads of state, pressured financial institutions, galvanized cyber activists, engaged computer hackers, spawned Wikileaks mirror groups, and detained Julian Assange, apparently someone's measured, hyper-crafted Hollywood version of these layers will leap to the head of the class and play out for all the world to see.
After I received an unencrypted cell phone call tip from an anonymous source, I was instructed to head to my local Starbucks, order a latte and return home. There, in my laptop, I was told I would find a Katy Perry CD that had been wiped clean and now contained the first dump of the alleged Wikiflix Files which log plans for various permutations of a major motion WikiLeaks picture.
My mission: to disseminate the material across the Internet by contacting a single online industry news journal of my choice and asking them to publish the material. Why? To subvert governments, overturn Hollywood, shun Bollywood, rattle the studios, piss off moviegoers? You decide.
Here's the list.
1. Project Title: Undisclosed
Studio: Anonymous/Culver City
Budget: $100M
The action/adventure film will depict Assange as a megalomaniac with a heart of gold. Events will play in linear time. Heightened drama, pacing, gut-wrenching flashbacks to Assange's Australia. Nail biting. Explosions of cars, buildings, government and private property will be worked into the plot. Assange's look will range from Andy Warhol to Andy Rooney. Assange's love interest will be a cross between Franke Potente in Run Lola Run and Noomi Rapace in The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. Film will also contain some epic Illuminati/Twelve Families/World Bank manipulations and disclosures, Vatican implications, Bush-Obama Reptilian revelations, courting the Da Vinci Code audience. Plot points: fast and furious. Locations: Worldwide.
Possible directors: Stephen Gaghan (Syriana), Roland Emmerich (2012)
Julian Assange: Liam Neeson
Hillary Clinton: Diane Wiest
Assange's Love Interest: Paprika Steen
2. Project Title: A Hole
Studio: Independent
Budget: under $7 million
A Movie Guide to Occupy Wall Street
Little known other than that this is an indie project that will focus on Assange's time in Australia. May play more as a cradle-to-grave bio-pic. Will set the stage for a psychological profile of future enemy of the state, Assange, whose unconventional childhood gave him the ability to pierce veils and see beyond the status quo. Slow burning Minghella-style drama starring major players with gravitas.
Possible director: John Cameron Mitchell ("Rabbit Hole")
Julian Assange: Aaron Eckhardt
Assange's Love Interest: Nicole Kidman
Hillary Clinton: Dianne Wiest
Young Assange: Miles Teller
Wikileaks Staffer: Sandra Oh
3. Project Title: Another Social Networking project
Studio: Undisclosed/Burbank
Budget: $50 million
WikiRebels: From Sweden with Love
Story will attempt to uncover the true mastermind behind Cablegate with a focus on Private Manning and the billions spent by the Pentagon and State Department to ward off cyber attacks and security breaches. Positioning Julian Assange as more showman than provocateur, action will revolve around inside-job motives and hidden power brokers in the government. Loads of repartee, moving targets, and smoke screens.
Possible Director: David Fincher (The Social Network)
Screenwriter: Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)
Julian Assange: Brad Pitt
Private Bradley Manning: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Hillary Clinton: Judi Dench
4. WikiLeaks Documentary project
Director: Michael Moore
Funding: Crowdsourcing
Slated to be as much about WikiLeaks as it is about the making/funding of the documentary itself by attempted use of Paypal, Visa and Mastercard. Focus will be on transparency in government, the history of the First Amendment, the close ties between the banking industry and leading Republicans and Democrats, a look at the McCarthy Era, the Nazis regime, slavery in all its forms and how governments make its unwitting citizenry complicit in nationwide schemes that are later revealed, dismantled and decried; historical themes evidencing orchestrations that do not withstand the test of time. Moore is expected to gain access to additional cables and files with even higher security clearance, essentially upending Julian Assange and showing how anyone with a fair amount of charisma can obtain tens of thousands of secret documents with or without the use of a computer.
Clash of the WikiLeaks Media Titans