Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is one of the most acclaimed books about the Vietnam War ever written—not to mention the fact that it’s often a staple at American middle schools and high schools—and now director Rupert Sanders (Snow White And The Huntsman, Ghost In The Shell) is honoring that legacy by pulling out some big names for his big-screen adaptation. As reported by Deadline, the cast will include Tom Hardy, Bill Skarsgård, Tye Sheridan, Stephan James, Ashton Sanders, Martin Sensmeier, Moises Arias, Angus Cloud, and Pete Davidson, with more casting decisions apparently on the way.
The book is a collection of stories that blend reality and fiction, with O’Brien centering some of the overarching narrative on a fictionalized version of himself as he serves with a group of young soldiers in Vietnam called Alpha Company. It’s unclear if the movie will have any structural tricks, but Sanders said in a statement that it will at least maintain the “themes of love, fear, and mortality” that “still resonate today, maybe even more powerfully.” One of The Things They Carried’s stories, “Sweetheart Of The Song Tra Bong,” was previously adapted into a TV movie in 1998 as A Soldier’s Sweetheart with Kiefer Sutherland.