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Bradley Cooper to Produce and Star in Adaptation of 'Dark Invasion'

by Ethan Anderton
January 15, 2013

Coming off an Oscar nomination for an impressive performance in Silver Linings Playbook, actor Bradley Cooper can pretty much do whatever he wants. One of his projects is a reunion with director David O. Russell in an untitled drama formerly known as American Bullshit which just gained Louis C.K. in the cast. Now Deadline has word that Warner Bros. has just landed the rights to Howard Blum's upcoming book Dark Invasion. Set to be published on September 11th this fall, the story is a spy thriller set back in 1915 when Germany, still neutral in the war between Europe and America, sends some of their Secret Service agents into the states to stop Americans from helping the Allies. But Cooper won't be working for Germany.

Germany's spies are tasked with bombing factories, sabotaging ships, assassinating J.P. Morgan (one of the key financiers behind the Allies and the man who would form General Electric), attacking the U.S. Capitol Building and setting up an anthrax lab six miles from the White House. That's a lot of preemptive action to stop America from helping in the war effort. Meanwhile, Cooper plays NYPD Captain Tom Tunney, who is tasked with bringing this team of German spies to justice. In the book, it's said that Tunney's involvement in this effort has the CIA considering the police officer their first head of homeland security.

This sounds like a stellar spy thriller, and even more interesting since the story takes place in 1915, at a time when a lot of gadgets that we see in spy movies today simply weren't around. That also includes the presence of television and a lack of extremely quick communication. Cooper is also producing, so if the film turns into something the Oscars might enjoy, he could very well get a Best Picture nomination to go with an acting nod. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The book doesn't hit shelves until September, and development is just now beginning on the adaptation, so we might not hear anything for awhile.

Filed under Development, Movie News

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