It’s only a few weeks since James McAvoy entered talks to star in Dreamworks’ Untitled WikiLeaks Project, but now the actor has dropped out, due to the fact he couldn’t work the film around his commitments to shoot X-Men: Days Of Future Past early next year. The filmmakers have moved fast to replace him with Inglourious Basterds star Daniel Brühl, according to THR.
Brühl will play Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who was the right hand man of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Domscheit-Berg’s departure from the website is credited as one of the many reasons why thousands of diplomatic cables were leaked in September 2011, which lead to Julian Assange’s (at least partial) downfall. Although Berg initially agreed with Assange’s mission to reveal things governements were trying to keep secret, he began to have major problems with the Wikileaks’ head lack of journalistic integrity and potentially dangerous actions.
Bill Condon is directing from an adapted screenplay by Josh Singer, based on Domscheit-Berg’s book, Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange At The World’s Most Dangerous Website, as well as WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy by British jorunalists David Leigh and Luke Harding. There were reports that Laura Linney was circling a role as a State Department official, but she is not in talks to join the project (although there is interest in her). DreamWorks has put the project on the fast track, with production to begin in January.
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