Oscar Isaac is joining the long tradition of cinematic Nazi hunters, with Deadline reporting that the Star Wars star has signed on to play Mossad agent Peter Malkin in an upcoming historical drama about Israel’s clandestine capture of Adolf Eichmann. Isaac is in final negotiations to star in Operation Finale, a dramatization of the long-running efforts to find, capture, and ultimately execute Eichmann, one of the primary architects of the Holocaust.
Malkin—who eventually became the chief of operations for Israel’s intelligence agency—was one of the agents who actually captured Eichmann in 1960, wrestling him to the ground near the Argentinian home where he’d been living under an assumed name. He then worked to smuggle the captured Nazi out of the country, drugging him and disguising him as a flight attendant on an El Al flight back to Israel, where he was put on trial and hanged in 1962.
About A Boy’s Chris Weitz will direct the film, which is being compared to historical spy dramas like Argo and Munich. Isaac, meanwhile, is keeping himself busy in his non-Star Wars time; he recently finished shooting on another historical drama, The Promise, with Christian Bale, and is set to play another Nazi-fighting superspy in The Garbo Project.