Hollywood gears up to tackle the Osama bin Laden story

With all the predictability of a Jennifer Aniston rom-com, Osama bin Laden's new "deceased" status was bound to herald the arrival of a flurry of film projects.

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With all the predictability of a Jennifer Aniston rom-com, Osama bin Laden's new "deceased" status was bound to herald the arrival of a flurry of film projects surrounding the late al Qa'eda leader - his final days, his childhood - no doubt by studios that failed to jump on the Wikileaks bandwagon fast enough.

But what many didn't know was that a major film was already in the pipeline from none other than the Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow. Tentatively titled Kill Bin Laden, the story was to feature a team of US special forces hunting for the reclusive public enemy, focusing on an unsuccessful attempt to find his hideaway in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan.

Rather than discard the idea in the light of recent events, Bigelow has reportedly brought on board Mark Boal, her producing and writing partner on The Hurt Locker - to rewrite the script and incorporate a few, all-important, changes. And, according to a couple of sources, the film has already snared its first lead, with the Australian actor Joel Edgerton apparently set to play a special operative in a team of commandos searching for bin Laden.

Bigelow and company will have to get a wriggle on, though. There's a 24 film in the works which could easily work in a bin Laden spin. Not long after the US president Barack Obama announced that bin Laden had been killed, "Jack Bauer" was a trending topic on Twitter.

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