Jeremy Renner Ready To ‘Kill The Messenger’ In Film About CIA-Smeared Journo Gary Webb [View all]

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Jeremy Renner has been set to star in Kill The Messenger, a thriller that Michael Cuesta will direct that is based on the tragic tale of a journalist who committed suicide after being smeared by the CIA. The script was written by Peter Landesman and Renner and Don Handfield will produce through their production company, The Combine, along with Scott Stuber. The film will begin production in the summer.

This is a project that has been in the works for several years, and most recently had been at Universal. If the CIA mostly wears a white hat in Zero Dark Thirty for its dogged efforts to track and kill Osama Bin Laden, the agency wears a decidedly black lid here. Kill The Messenger is based on the true story of Gary Webb, a San Jose Mercury News reporter who committed suicide after being the target of a smear campaign when he linked the CIA to a scheme to arm Contra rebels in Nicaragua and import cocaine into California.

Landesman (who is right now making his directorial debut on the JFK assassination pic Parkland) put the script together with source material from two books: Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, by Webb, and Nick Schou’s Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb....

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http://www.deadline.com/2013/01/jeremy-renner-ready-to-kill-the-messenger-in-berlin-bound-film-package-about-cia-smeared-journo-gary-webb/#more-418340