With the news that Sony Pictures is interested in Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama Bin Laden / Navy SEALs pic, and Taylor Kitsch being cast in Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor, it’s obvious that Hollywood is moving forward with producing military-related films that show the Armed Forces in a positive light. The death of Osama Bin Laden makes it cool to like Navy SEALs again, apparently.
But before either of those films get released, we’ll see Act of Valour, an under-the-radar production that was recently acquired by Relativity Media for $13 million. One of the reasons it was made under the radar is because the project is comprised of an unknown cast. The reason the cast is unknown is because the six lead roles are played by active duty SEALs. So the production has military involvement from the get-go. Kurt Johnstad, who previously worked on the screenplay for 300, scripted the picture. Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh are making their feature directorial debuts with Valour having previously shot the documentary short titled “Navy SWCC.”
Relativity Media won a bidding war for the distribution rights over the likes of Dark Castle, Lionsgate and FilmDistrict. Said to be very patriot and heavy on action, it will look to open on upwards of 3000 screens either this Veterans Day or Presidents Day next February.
