Hero, martyr or threat? Depending on where you stand, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is either one of the above or all three, and now Hollywood is coming to tell his story, or at least their version of it. While Benedict Cumberbatch will play the platinum haired whistleblower in this fall’s “The Fifth Estate,” first out of the gate is Alex Gibney‘s “We Steal Secrets: The Story WikiLeaks” and it seems like a crash course in everything you need to know about Assange and the group that continues to frustrate authorities worldwide.
The new trailer for the documentary give an overview of Assange’s rise, coming with the release of the footage of a 2007 airstrike in Iraq that left two journalists killed, and of course the voluminous War Logs disseminated to the press that offered a whole new level of truth on the war on terror. But caught up in the web of info was Bradley Manning, the private who leaked the intel to Assange, which kicked off a furious debate about what the public has the right to know… and what it doesn’t. Certainly, this doc will be mashing down the buttons hard no matter what you think of Assagne, and with Gibney’s track record (“Client 9,” “Mea Maxima Culpa,” “Taxi To The Dark Side“) this should be some compelling work.
‘We Steal Secrets’ opens on May 24th. Watch below.