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Jeremy Renner to 'Kill the Messenger' in CIA Scheme to Target Reporter

by Ethan Anderton
February 1, 2013

The Berlin Film Market kicks off next week, so there will be a slew of projects that we don't really need to cover as we'll likely never hear about them again. But a new project headed to Berlin called Kill the Messenger sounds particularly interesting. Deadline reports Jeremy Renner is slated to star in the film that chronicles the CIA's efforts to craft a smear campaign to ruin the reputation of journalist Gary Webb after he linked the CIA to a scheme to arm Contra rebels in Nicaragua and import cocaine into California. I guess you could say the CIA won since the San Jose Mercury News journalist committed suicide. Read on!

Deadline makes a fine point by saying, "If the CIA mostly wears a white hat in Zero Dark Thirty for its dogged efforts to track and kill Osama bin Laden, the agency wears a decidedly black lid here." And who better to bring this CIA story to life than "Homeland" producer and director Michael Cuesta with a script from Peter Landesman, who wrote the script from Webb's book Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, And The Crack Cocaine Explosion  and Nick Schou’s Kill The Messenger: How The CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb. This is definitely an intriguing tale of the dark side of the CIA's operations when they're made to look foolish and incompetent, but it's also very tragic and worrisome. Production is supposed to begin this summer, so hopefully we'll have more updates on this project soon.

Filed under Casting, Development, Movie News

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