Adding another conflict to a story that definitely doesn’t need it, two competing movie projects are in the works on the life of Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. Army soldier who escaped Taliban captivity mere weeks ago, only to be imprisoned inside a little box next to shouting cable news pundits. One hails from Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty team that—as also seen in Bigelow’s development of The True American with Tom Hardy—remains determined to tell every controversial post-9/11 story it can find, possibly as part of a long campaign to give John McCain a heart attack.
While Bigelow isn’t expected to direct at this point, her and Boal’s take is expected to be a similarly enraging story examining the circumstances of Berghdal’s release in exchange for five Taliban prisoners—which possibly differs from the competing Bergdahl movie from Todd Field, director of In The Bedroom and Little Children, who will apply his knack for uncomfortable family dramas to the more personal story of Bergdahl’s background. Field’s movie has optioned Michael Hastings’ 2012 Rolling Stone article, “America’s Last Prisoner Of War,” as its basis, though neither Field nor Bigelow and Boal have actually acquired the life rights to Berghdal’s story just yet. Still, something tells us that’s one fight over him that Bergdahl would probably welcome.