Julian Assange Biography Optioned for Feature Film

The first major step has been taken to get a film about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the big screen.

Producers Barry Josephson and Michelle Krumm have teamed up to option the film rights to The Most Dangerous Man in the World, an Assange biography written by award-winning Australian reporter Andrew Fowler.

The book traces Assange’s childhood to his founding of WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website that put Assange into the U.S. government’s crosshairs when in November he published secret diplomatic cables. Right after, he was accused of sexual offences and is now on bail.
 
In December, in order to help pay his mounting legal fees, he made a $1 million deal to write an autobiography. It was believed that Hollywood would come calling next, as certain producers became interested in getting a look at any book being written.

Fowler first interviewed Assange in May. The book will be published by Melbourne University Publishing this year.

No writer has been hired. The producers liken their adaptation to the suspense of All the President’s Men and the thrill of a Tom Clancy novel.

Josephson, whose credits include Enchanted and Fox’s Bones, is working via his Josephson Entertainment shingle. Krumm, a former acquisitions exec at the Weinstein Co., executive produced Bobby; she is producing via her MK Productions banner.

L.H. Adonis will co-produce the adaptation.

Fowler is repped by Jane Burridge at The Other Woman & Co.