Actor Nicholas Cage has been cast to star in Larry Charles’s latest satire film, Army of One, and will reportedly play a “regular guy” who journeys across the world to hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
Army of One will loosely follow Chris Heath’s 2010 GQ article, which chronicled the true story of Gary Faulkner, a Colorado construction worker and ex-convict who infamously traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan multiple times to hunt for the now departed al-Qaeda leader.
The project’s partners spoke of their excitement and heaped high praise on Charles, who directed the Sacha Baron Cohen films Borat and Bruno and worked on the production of Seinfeld.
“For many years I’ve been a fan of Larry Charles, from his work on Seinfeld to Borat and Bruno and, most recently, The Dictator,” producer Bob Weinstein, co-chairman of The Weinstein Company, said.
Endgame Entertainment’s James D. Stern also spoke of the joint venture: “I’m delighted to be working with Bob and Harvey again and thrilled to be doing so with comic genius Larry Charles.”
While few details about the project have been released, works of Western satire have found themselves in international crosshairs recently.
The Seth Rogen and James Franco movie dud The Interview provoked an international incident, causing theaters across the United States pulled the film in an 11th-hour attempt to appease critics of the film’s content.
Parisian satire publication Charlie Hebdo suffered dearly over caricature depictions of Muhammad printed in its weekly magazine. On Jan. 7, two masked Islamist gunmen entered the offices of Charlie Hebdo and murdered 12 employees.
Director Larry Charles is set to begin shooting Army of One by the end of March, with a goal of releasing the film by the end of the year.