Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/03/03/wikileaks_movie_dreamworks_spielberg/

WikiLeaks movie screen rights secured by DreamWorks

Julian Assange gets his 'phone home' moment

By Kelly Fiveash

Posted in Bootnotes, 3rd March 2011 11:17 GMT

A movie about the WikiLeaks drama looks set to get a sprinkling of stardust from Steven Spielberg, after the ET director reportedly secured the screen rights to a book chronicling the life of the whistleblower site's founder Julian Assange.

According to the Guardian, a film will be "conceived as an investigative thriller in the mould of All the President's Men".

The Dreamworks studio founded by Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg in 1994 will back the movie, which is based on the screen rights of the WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War On Secrecy book written by Grauniad hacks David Leigh and Luke Harding.

The book follows Assange's early years up to the founding of the WikiLeaks website in 2006. It also details the inside story of his tense partnership with The Guardian, which released more than 250,000 secret diplomatic cables late last year.

It's understood that DreamWorks has also bought the rights to ex-WikiLeaker Daniel Domscheit-Berg's book.

However, there's no script writer or director for the film yet. And it's unclear who DreamWorks would line up to play Assange. Our money's on Jim Carey or John Inman... Oh, wait. ®