The exciting news that Hollywood star Brad Pitt will arrive in Abu Dhabi soon to shoot his new project, War Machine, has somewhat overshadowed what looks like a very interesting premise for a film.
The production, which is being funded by the global internet streaming platform Netflix to the tune of about US$60 million (Dh220m), is expected to spend a month filming in Abu Dhabi.
The film is based on the career of American general Stanley McChrystal, who was appointed to command the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2009. The general wanted US President Barack Obama to implement “COIN”, a counter-insurgency policy that involved politics, diplomacy, years more of involvement in Afghanistan and a dramatic increase in the number of troops needed. In his first year in the job, he is widely held to have alienated many of the key people involved in the conflict.
In 2010, McChrystal was the subject of a candid and controversial Rolling Stone article, “The Runaway General”. The piece, which captured McChrystal and his boisterous staff repeatedly slamming their government counterparts, ultimately resulted in the general resigning from his position.
Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings received the George Polk Award for the article. In 2012, he published a book based on his month-long stay with the general in Afghanistan and Europe, called The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan. The book, written in the critical tone Hastings used for much of his coverage of American government military and surveillance activity, became a New York Times bestseller. The writer, however, died in a car accident in Los Angeles in 2013.
Pitt announced in April of last year that he had bought the rights to the Hastings book and would play the lead role in the film adaptation, with the name of the character changed to “General McMahon”. Pitt is riding high as a producer – his company, Plan B, proved that it could handle difficult material and produce critical and commercial results with the success of the Academy Award-winning 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave.
Also in the cast is John Magaro, who appeared in Unbroken, the based-on-fact prisoner-of-war drama that was directed by Angelina Jolie, Pitt’s wife. Magaro will play Cory Burger, a special ops soldier and close adviser to General McMahon.
Interstellar and That ’70s Show star Topher Grace – who will return to the capital after promoting his film The Double during the 2011 Abu Dhabi Film Festival – is set to play McMahon’s civilian press adviser, a character likely to be based on Duncan Boothby.
Emory Cohen, who played a younger version of Bradley Cooper in The Place Beyond the Pines, will play a member of the platoon. Other cast members include British star Will Poulter and The Breakfast Club star Anthony Michael Hall. The big question remains of who will play Obama and vice president Joe Biden – or whether they will even be included in the script. Pitt quickly snapped up Australian filmmaker David Michôd to bringWar Machine to the big screen. A former entertainment journalist, who once edited a film magazine, Michôd is best known for his intense Australian gangster thriller Animal Kingdom, which was inspired by the notorious Pettingill family. It launched the international careers of Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn and Jacki Weaver, who received an Oscar nomination for her performance. Michôd followed this up with the post-apocalyptic road movie The Rover, starring Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson.
Judging from the Netflix synopsis, War Machine will pick up the story as Pitt’s character takes up his position with ISAF.
“War Machine concerns a four-star, ‘rock star’ general whose lethal reputation and impeccable track record vaults him to command the American war in Afghanistan,” it says. “Determined to win the ‘impossible’ war once and for all with a radical new approach, the general and his motley staff of commanders and press advisers race across the globe navigating delicate international alliances and troop requests, the charged battlefield of Washington politics, the voracious appetite of the media, and the day-to-day management of the war itself – all the while struggling to stay connected to the lives of men and women out in the field.”
So the film will be a biting satire, something not seen in Michôd’s previous films. However, when I met the director in London last year, while he was promoting The Rover, he said that he hoped to make a comedy – despite his fascination with the depths of the male ego.
“There is something that fascinates me about the sadness of men,” he said. “Underneath the power and status, the muscularity and the violence, there is always a bubbling sadness, a broken child. I don’t know why, precisely, I’m attracted to that stuff, but I find it fascinating.”
Looks like War Machine could be the perfect blend of all his filmmaking interests.
This picture package was on Deadline’s list of his Cannes titles, but Pitt and his reps have for several weeks been down the road with Ted Sarandos and his Netflix cohorts on an alternative strategy. With this deal, Sarandos has an opportunity to make the kind of seismic move in features as he did with TV series like House Of Cards. This will be the biggest investment Netflix will have made so far in a feature film, in the $30 million range. It is also the first time Netflix has really gotten hold of a film with one of the biggest global A-list movie stars, in his prime, along with his producing cohorts whose recent credits include Best Picture winner 12 Years A Slave and Best Picture nominee Selma.