Monday, March 18, 2024

Oliver Stone Will Make Movie Based on Novel by Edward Snowden’s Russian Lawyer

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Oliver Stone is making a movie sort of about Edward Snowden. He and producing partner Moritz Borman have bought the rights to a novelised version of the Snowden story written by the NSA leaker’s Russian lawyer. The book, to be published this fall, is called “Time of the Octopus,” written by Anatoly Kucherena.

from the press release: The novel tells the fictional story of an American whistleblower, Joshua Cold, who, threatened by his Government, and while waiting for a decision on his request for asylum from the Russian authorities, spends three weeks in limbo in the transit area of the Moscow airport.  He occupies his time there talking to a Russian lawyer about his life and what motivated him to expose a massive American surveillance program.

Said Kucherena: “The more I engaged in the Edward Snowden case, the more I was impressed by his story. To understand Edward and his actions, I had to ‘tune to his wavelength’ and try to balance between the rational and intuitive perception of his world. Having experienced these incredible sensations, I realized that I had to write about them, but only in the form of a novel that would not claim any sophisticated philosophical conclusions.”

Said Stone: “Anatoly has written a ‘grand inquisitor’ style Russian novel weighing the soul of his fictional whistleblower, Joshua Cold, against the gravity of a ‘1984’ tyranny that has achieved global proportions.  His meditations on the meaning of totalitarian power in the 21st century make for a chilling, prescient horror story.”

Stone will use Kucherena’s insights alongside Luke Harding’s book, ‘The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man’ as the sources for the screenplay of his untitled “Snowden” film, with production planned to start before the end of the year.

 

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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