Daniel Brühl is thisclose to lift off…
The 38-year-old half-Spanish actor is in talks to star opposite Rosamund Pike and Vincent Cassel in Jose Padilha’s Entebbe for Working Title.
Participant is also on board as producer and in negotiations to fully finance the film, which was penned by Greg Burke, who wrote Yann Demange’s brilliant ’71.
It’s the 1976 true story, when four hijackers — two Palestinian, two German — took a plane hostage and diverted it to land in Entebbe, Uganda, while they demanded the release of dozens of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian prisoners.
The ticking-clock thriller follows the hijackers, hostages, then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and future PM Shimon Peres trying to decide whether to negotiate or launch a raid to free the hostages, as well as the French crew led by the pilot who refused to leave when they could with the other French hostages.
Given Europe’s own summer of terror, with the wave of attacks in France and Germany — not to mention devastating attacks in Iraq, Turkey, Orlando and elsewhere — the picture is likely to have strong contemporary relevance even with its historical setting.
Padilha, who shot to prominence with his gritty police crime tale Elite Squad — which won Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2007 — will bring his research-based documentary background to bear as he did so successfully in both Elite Squad films, his searing documentary Bus 174 and, of course his brilliant Pablo Escobar Netflix drama Narcos. Padilha will examine the story from multiple points of view – the German and Palestinian hijackers, the Israeli (and other nationalities) hostages, as well as Israeli officials like Peres and Rabin.
The story of the Entebbe raid and hijackings has been told before on TV and in numerous docus. Peter Finch and Charles Bronson starred in the 1976 NBC movie of the week Raid On Entebbe directed by Irvin Kershner, while a rival TV movie Victory At Entebbe was produced the same year at ABC starring Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster.
The latest project reps the first time the story will be told for the big screen by a filmmaking team at the absolute top of its game.
Brühl has The Zookeeper’s Wife opposite Jessica Chastain in post and is also set to star in the JJ Abrams-produced God Particle alongside Elizabeth Debicki, John Krasinski and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
