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Hollywood Tries a New Battle Plan


'Act of Valor' director Mike McCoy. ENLARGE
'Act of Valor' director Mike McCoy. Courtesy of 'Act of Valor'




Ten years after the Sept. 11 attacks opened an ongoing chapter of U.S. military action, Hollywood's long history of depicting fighters at war is entering a new phase. The grinding wars in Afghanistan and Iraq spawned films that highlighted characters in uniform who were disillusioned with their missions and scarred in their homecomings. With the conflicted protagonists of movies such as "Green Zone" and "Stop-Loss," filmmakers tried to tap into the public's ambivalence about the conflicts, but their movies mostly sank at the box office. Now that deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq are tapering down, filmmakers are homing in on the more clear-cut job of battling terrorists. And they're finding heroes in the elite—and now famous—special-operations forces leading the hunt. Projects in the pipeline focus on the armed heroics, high-tech tactics and teamwork involved in getting the bad guys.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer recently struck a deal with ABC for a pilot about the family life and field missions of Navy SEALs. Universal is readying "Lone Survivor," a script about a decorated SEAL who fought through a rout in the mountains of Afghanistan. Sony recently set an October 2012 release date for "Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal's account of the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, capped by the SEAL-led killing of the al Qaeda leader.

The box-office taint on movies with a perceived political bent, combined with the budget pressures that combat narratives bring, have made many contemporary war stories seem too risky for the studios, says director Peter Berg. He co-wrote the script for "Lone Survivor," which he will direct, based on a memoir by former SEAL Marcus Luttrell. For research, Mr. Berg embedded with a special-forces team at a remote base in Iraq near the Syrian border. Universal signed off on the project only after Mr. Berg agreed to first direct "Battleship," a big-budget extrapolation of the board game property, slated for release next spring.

Nevertheless, Mr. Berg says "Lone Survivor" wouldn't have been greenlighted had it not offered some commercial potential for the studio. "The idea of a good old-fashioned combat yarn, in which the politics are very clear—we support these men—was more appealing to them." Unlike many of the portraits of soldiers at war presented in recent years, "Lone Survivor" is about "the core warrior spirit," he said. "It's an unabashed tribute to the courage of these men." Production is scheduled to begin next spring.

Director Scott Waugh films the SEALs. ENLARGE
Director Scott Waugh films the SEALs. Courtesy of 'Act of Valor'

In 2008, Navy Special Warfare invited a handful of production companies to submit proposals for a film project, possibly a documentary, that would flesh out the role of the SEALs. The goals: bolster recruiting efforts, honor fallen team members and offer a corrective to misleading fare such as "Navy Seals," the 1990 shoot-em-up starring Charlie Sheen as a cocky lone wolf. "In the SEAL ethos, the superman myth does not apply. It's a lifestyle of teamwork, hard work and academic discipline," said Capt. Duncan Smith, a SEAL who initiated the project and essentially served as producer within the military.



As the SEALs' stories unfolded on camera and over beers, the filmmakers began to question the idea of casting actors to play the sailors. In one interview, a lieutenant spoke articulately and without affect about feeling envious while looking down at a comrade's coffin, knowing the man had fulfilled his duty to the end. In the lieutenant and another SEAL, a voluble father of five, the directors realized they'd found their leads. But it took them four months to persuade the men and a half-dozen other SEALs to take roles in the movie, thus bucking their community's ideal of the "quiet professional." For the SEALs, the decision meant potentially risking "ridicule for the rest of their careers for stepping outside the community," Mr. McCoy says.

After they made a group decision to participate, deciding the project served the SEALs' greater good, the Navy made the film a formal task for the sailors, who were between deployments. Their names won't appear in the "Act of Valor" credits; instead, the film will list Naval Special Warfare members killed since Sept. 11.

The Bandito Brothers commissioned a script from Kurt Johnstad, who had co-written "300," a comic-book-style depiction of ancient Spartan warriors that has many fans among U.S. troops, but that many critics dismissed as heavy-handed and excessively violent. His "Act of Valor" screenplay revolved around a SEAL team's mission to stop a Chechen jihadist cooperating with a smuggler to send suicide bombers across the Mexican border toward U.S. targets. (A villain from Eastern Europe was a less obvious and potentially sensitive choice than an Arab, the filmmakers say.) Most of the story's big action scenes were plotted around training operations that the Navy already had on the calendar.


The filmmakers came away with key scenes for "Act of Valor," while the Navy would receive blanket footage of the exercise for use in future training. Having paid for the initial shoot themselves, at less than $1 million, the Bandito Brothers showed the clip to potential investors to demonstrate they could execute the film's unusual concept. Over time, financing came from about dozen parties, including Legendary Entertainment, the company behind blockbusters such as "The Dark Knight" and "Inception." Bandito Brothers Chief Operating Officer Max Leitman declined to discuss the film's total budget.

The Bandito Brothers' L.A. headquarters is nestled in a maze of converted warehouses. A loft-style office space opens onto a cactus-studded garden, where a silver Airstream trailer serves as an office and clubhouse. In an adjacent lot, a hangar-size building is being converted into a production facility, supplementing a garage that houses a studio and a small fleet of dusty motocross bikes. On a recent afternoon, artists at computer monitors toiled over visuals for the coming superhero movie "The Avengers," directed by Joss Whedon. The digital-effects job resulted from the Bandito Brothers' joint venture with design studio Cantina Creative.

"Radness?" Mr. McCoy said to one worker as he walked by. "Making radness?" The director has a slight, wiry build (hence his nickname since childhood). He smokes small Macanudo cigars, and his loping gait suggests both a swagger and a history of broken bones.

Mr. McCoy and his partners have clearly been influenced by their time in the SEALs' midst. Six out of their seven SEAL "actors" have been deployed since the film wrapped. Just days after a helicopter had been shot down in Afghanistan carrying more than 30 men, 17 of them SEALs, the filmmakers spoke carefully about the "really heavy burden" they felt to accurately portray the sailors' skills and sacrifices. On Friday, the Navy Special Warfare community gathers at Arlington National Cemetery for a private burial ceremony.

In the movie, authenticity came with some trade-offs. Some dialogue-driven scenes seem stilted, including banter between the SEALs, who address each other as "dude" or "sir." The sailors' rapid descriptions of their mission plans could speed over some viewers' heads. Mr. McCoy acknowledged, "These guys are not Johnny Depp or Daniel Day-Lewis."

The filmmakers say the SEALs tackled their acting duties methodically, as they would a new tactical skill. In a scene where one of them discovers a female CIA operative who has been kidnapped and tortured, the directors coached him to slow down and tap into the emotion of the rescue. "For the audience, you need to get really compassionate. The women are going to need to connect," Mr. McCoy recalled saying.



Studios immediately angled for projects that might capture some of the public fascination with the SEALs who led the strike. The most high-profile was the Bigelow and Boal script, which had been in development since 2008. Sony scooped up the movie about the bin Laden hunt within three weeks of his death. The movie is expected to be released in October 2012, a date that has drawn some political controversy. Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) called for an investigation into whether the White House gave the filmmakers access to confidential information and suggested that the film's planned release next fall could influence the presidential election soon after. White House spokesman Jay Carney called the suggestion "ridiculous"; the filmmakers said in a statement that their film had no political angle.

Bin Laden's death found the Bandito Brothers sitting on a completed SEALs movie, but they didn't immediately put it on the auction block. "We were nervous about seeming exploitative," says WME agent Liesl Copland. The agency set up two "Act of Valor" screenings for potential buyers in June, four weeks after bin Laden was killed, by which time most of the related deal-making had died down in Hollywood.

A half-dozen distributors, including Alcon Entertainment and Film District, made serious bids for the movie. It sold to Relativity Media, known for titles such as "Bridesmaids" and "The Social Network," for $13 million. In addition to the financial terms of the deal, the filmmakers said they were won over by the company's plan for a long-term rollout, led by marketing head Terry Curtin, who comes from a line of Navy aviators and admirals. Relativity plans a wide release on Presidents Day weekend, Feb. 17.

The Bandito Brothers acknowledge that the bin Laden timing helped them land a faster, more attractive deal than they might have otherwise. But they're gratified that Relativity didn't want to rush the movie out just to capitalize on the SEALs' moment in the spotlight. By February, Mr. Leitman says, "Act of Valor" can be expected to "sink, swim, live or die on its own."

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