The Kidd here...
Things have been quite busy for Jeremy Renner fairly recently - MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, THE AVENGERS, THE BOURNE LEGACY, HANSEL & GRETEL (okay, we can try to forget that one)... either way, he's been keeping his calendar full with projects, and he's just lined up another, committing to produce and star in KILL THE MESSENGER, a story based on the real life events of a journalist who killed himself after a smear campaign to destroy his reputation by the C.I.A.
According to Deadline, Michael Cuesta (exec producer and sometimes director on HOMELAND) has been tapped to helm the film, which will look for a buyer in Berlin at the European Film Market. Peter Landesman penned the script, which pulls material from two books: Gary Webb's Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, And The Crack Cocaine Explosion and Kill The Messenger: How The CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb by Nick Schou. Webb is at the heart of the story, having worked as an investigative reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. After publishing a three-part expose that linked the C.I.A. to the importation of crack cocaine into California, Webb was the subject of a smear campaign by the intelligence agency that shattered his reputation, ruined his career and left him severely depressed, ultimately leading to his suicide in 2004.
This'll certainly be an interesting role for Renner to play, a bit of a departure from the more action-based parts he's been taking on as of late, but as we've seen in THE HURT LOCKER and THE TOWN, Renner does quite well when he's handling these complex, broken characters.
-Billy Donnelly
"The Infamous Billy The Kidd"
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