Deadline is reporting that Sony has offered the Tom Hanks Somali pirate drama to director Paul Greengrass.
The film, which Hanks signed on for back in March, follows the true story of Richard Phillips, the brave sea captain who risked his own life to save his crew on the Maersk Alabama cargo ship.
Held hostage by pirates for three days before rescue, Phillips’s would later turn his story into a book titled A Captain’s Duty. The site says that this will likely be Greengrass’s next project, further delaying MEMPHIS, his troubled look into the final days of Martin Luther King, Jr. That film was set to go until Universal had second thoughts and halted production.
Sources say MEMPHIS will be given a second life eventually but Greengrass is moving on for the time being. This movie could have gone one of two ways. It could have been a by-the-numbers, overwrought fluff piece or it could have been a much more authentic and dramatic look at the events. Now that Greengrass is on board, we can be sure that this film will pull no punches.
The folks behind THE SOCIAL NETWORK – Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca, Dana Brunetti and Kevin Spacey – are producing based on a script by Billy Ray.