Paramount Pictures
Last night, Citizenfour won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Next year, another movie about Edward Snowden could be up for some Academy Awards, too. Oliver Stone’s Snowden, a sort of remake of the doc in dramatic form, is set to hit theaters on Christmas. Shooting has already begun in Munich, Germany, and the production is still adding stars to its ensemble. The latest, according to Variety, is Nicolas Cage.
The Oscar-winning actor, who previously worked with the three-time Oscar-winning director on World Trade Center, is playing a former US Intelligence official. That could be an easy amalgam of multiple such figures who’ve been quoted or lumped together in various news articles on Snowden. Either among those commenting on the story or any of the ex-officials who worked with Snowden at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.
Cage joins Joseph Gordon Levitt, who is playing the infamous whistleblower, and Shailene Woodley, who plays Snowden’s girlfriend, Lindsay Mills. You probably saw the real Mills at the Oscars last night. She appeared on stage when Citizenfour won, wearing what looked like a tutu. Others on that stage will also be portrayed in Stone’s movie. Melissa Leo is playing filmmaker Laura Poitras, and Zachary Quinto is playing journalist Glenn Greenwald (who contrary to appearances did not himself receive an Oscar). Cage has not previously worked with any of them.
You can watch Citizenfour on HBO tonight, when it makes its debut on the cable network, or on demand and HBO Go starting tomorrow. In the doc, you’ll also meet journalist Ewen MacAskill, who will be portrayed in Stone’s movie by Tom Wilkinson. Also in the cast, in undetermined roles, are Joely Richardson and Rhys Ifans. Timothy Olyphant recently joined as a CIA agent who befriends Snowden before the latter flees to Russia, and Scott Eastwood is on board as an NSA agent.
Snowden features a script by Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald (The Homesman) based on the Snowden-based novel “Time of the Octopus” and the nonfiction book “The Snowden Files, The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man.”
Related Topics: Nicolas Cage
