Kathryn Bigelow’s Navy Seal Team 6 Film to Hit Theaters in 2012

Columbia Pictures has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s project regarding Navy Seal Team 6 and its hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

The duo behind the Oscar-winning thriller The Hurt Locker have been working on the project for some time and were eyeing a summer start when real life events  — Bin Laden’s killing by the black ops team — overtook the
project. Boal is incorporating the latest developments into the script.

Boal and Bigelow will produce the project, along with Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures, which is financing. Greg Shapiro, who worked on Hurt Locker, is exec producing.

Production is slated to begin in the late summer. The film will be released in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the studio.

The pickup marks another timely and elevated project for Amy Pascal and Columbia’s slate. After the success of The Social Network, they have proven themselves unafraid to try on dramas if the right creative people are involved.

Annapurna, meanwhile, has also been ratcheting up its slate, which has become more and more high-profile in recent months.

CAA repped Bigelow and Boal in the deal.