Jessica Chastain Kathryn Bigelow Joel Edgerton Split - H 2012
Getty ImagesThe last time Kathryn Bigelow traveled to the Middle East, it was a quiet trip that resulted in Oscar glory. Her next trip there has been considerably higher profile, and we’re still months away from the resultant film’s premiere.
Debuting on Monday is the first trailer for Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, the hotly-anticipated film portrayal of the secret CIA missions that ultimately took down 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. The movie stars Jessica Chastain, Joel and Nash Edgerton, Mark Duplass, Kyle Chandler and Mark Strong, among others, which makes for a much higher wattage group than was featured in Bigelow’s Hurt Locker — though stars Anthony Mackie and especially Jeremy Renner have gone on to major fame.
STORY: Inside Kathryn Bigelow’s bin Laden Movie
Bigelow is reunited here with screenwriter Mark Boal, who won an Oscar for his Hurt Locker screenplay; unlike that film, this movie has become a national flashpoint not for its portrayal of war and how soldiers cope (that part remains to be seen) but for how it’s getting made in the first place. The wheels on Zero Dark Thirty were already in motion when bin Laden was killed in May, 2011, which led to a major about-face for the director-writer team.
They received cooperation and information on the Seal Team Six mission into Pakistan from the Obama administration, something which has rankled Republicans, who have accused the White House of leaking confidential information to the pair. In order to avoid accusations of political agenda, the film is being released after the November election, on December 19; there is also no depiction of President Obama.
