Los Angeles, Apr 14 (IANS): Hollywood ace Phillip Noyce, who is known for his cutting-edge thrillers, has been roped in to direct "Alive Day", which accounts a real-life secret military mission in Iraq.
The film is adapted from Samuel Hill's military task-force novel "Six Days To Zeus: Alive Day". It follows the true story of Hill, called Chief in the novel, who led a unit of seven men from the Navy Seals, Green Berets, Army Rangers and Marine Recon. They conducted a secret surveillance mission during the Saddam Hussein regime. The film will be made from the screenplay by Kathleen McLaughlin, reports deadline.com.
Talking about the screenplay, Noyce said: "It is part 'American Sniper', part 'Born on the Fourth of July', part 'Coming Home', and part 'Deer Hunter', but different to all of them in that it has an Agatha Christie whodunit sensibility to it. And that is the accused, Chief, legitimately doesn't know if he's the perpetrator of slaughtering his own men. What really happened and what was unearthed is an unbelievable detective story involving the FBI, and the work that they were doing secretly for the Jordanian government."
"I've previously made reality based films with Harrison Ford such as 'Clear and Present Danger' and larger than life extreme action thrillers like 'Salt' with Angelina Jolie. In retelling one man's remarkable and uplifting real story, Kathleen McLaughlin's screenplay for 'Alive Day' combines seemingly disparate elements in ways that hopefully all at once reinvent the thriller, war and mystery film genres," he added.
The mission depicted on the film was so secretive that they had to change the name of their unit every 30 days. They would enter Baghdad, disguised in burkas or hiding in trucks. An explosion killed all the unit's members except Chief, who ended up wheelchair-bound. He was able to walk due to medical technology.
Noyce's filmography as a director includes films such as "The Quiet American", "Salt", "Dead Calm", "Sliver", "The Bone Collector", "Blind Fury", and "The Saint", besides the Jack Ryan adaptations "Patriot Games" and "Clear And Present Danger".
Mike Medavoy's Phoenix Pictures and Voyage Media's Nat Mundel will produce the film.