U.S. Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone is planning to make a film about former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Stone announced Monday that he will write and direct a movie based on a book written by British journalist Luke Harding.
The acclaimed and controversial director, along with his longtime producing partner Mortiz Borman, bought the film rights to Harding's "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the Wold's Most Wanted Man."
Stone said "This is one of the greatest stories of our time. A real challenge."
The film will not be the only one being made about Snowden. Last month, Sony Pictures purchased the movie rights to another book about Snowden, Glenn Greenwald's "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U.S. Surveillance State."
Stone's films include "JFK", "Nixon," "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Platoon."
Snowden is living in asylum in Russia, a year after leaking a vast cache of NSA documents to journalists that described clandestine U.S. spy operations around the world.
The documents included revelations that the NSA was collecting bulk telephone and Internet data from Americans. Snowden passed on the documents to journalists at the British newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post.
Both authors, Harding and Greenwald, work at the Guardian.
In an interview on U.S. television last week, Snowden said he sees himself as a patriot, but said that until he can return to the United States he plans to ask Russia to extend his asylum.
Stone announced Monday that he will write and direct a movie based on a book written by British journalist Luke Harding.
The acclaimed and controversial director, along with his longtime producing partner Mortiz Borman, bought the film rights to Harding's "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the Wold's Most Wanted Man."
Stone said "This is one of the greatest stories of our time. A real challenge."
The film will not be the only one being made about Snowden. Last month, Sony Pictures purchased the movie rights to another book about Snowden, Glenn Greenwald's "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U.S. Surveillance State."
Stone's films include "JFK", "Nixon," "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Platoon."
Snowden is living in asylum in Russia, a year after leaking a vast cache of NSA documents to journalists that described clandestine U.S. spy operations around the world.
The documents included revelations that the NSA was collecting bulk telephone and Internet data from Americans. Snowden passed on the documents to journalists at the British newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post.
Both authors, Harding and Greenwald, work at the Guardian.
In an interview on U.S. television last week, Snowden said he sees himself as a patriot, but said that until he can return to the United States he plans to ask Russia to extend his asylum.
