Perhaps spurred by moviegoers embracing the arrogant tech-pioneers of The Social Network, studios are racing to put a biopic of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange onscreen (competing projects include an Alex Gibney–directed documentary, an HBO movie, and two films developed by Mark Boal and Paul Greengrass), and now DreamWorks is throwing its hat into the ring. The studio has picked up two Assange-related books for development: Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website by former WikiLeaks exec Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding, who published Assange’s leaks in The Guardian. “This is how bullshit ends up being history: Spielberg lines up WikiLeaks film based on books by opportunists,” sniped the WikiLeaks Twitter account, but maybe they’ll change their tune when, say, a peroxide-headed James McAvoy makes Julian Assange adorable? [Deadline, Guardian UK, WikiLeaks/Twitter]
