Kathryn Bigelow's Osama Bin Laden film has a title; Joel Edgerton to star?

Even before the amazing news from last night that terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden had been killed there were a pair of films surrounding him that were in development. The most prominent of which was first rumored about back in January, and would reunite The Hurt Locker duo of director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal. The film wouldn't exactly be about Bin Laden, but events surrounding a failed attempt to capture or kill him, likely when he escaped(thanks to Bush-ian incompetence if you ask me) at Tora Bora. In a timely bit of news, Deadline is now confirming that the thriller has a title, Kill Bin Laden, and if Bigelow has her way it will star the surging Aussie actor Joel Edgerton(Animal Kingdom).

But the events of last night do throw a bit of curveball into the mix. The film is being prepped as an indie, so any studio that gains the rights to it will want to fast track this baby to capitalize on the wave of patriotism that's been sweeping ever since the news broke. There are still folks outside the White House celebrating like their favorite team just won the World Series. Speaking of baseball, the last time I can remember that an in-production film saw a current event so drastically change their storyline was in 2005's Fever Pitch, which was about a guy's obsession with the Boston Red Sox and how they never win a title. Of course they won that year and the ending of the film was changed to reflect it. I'm sure it's happened more often but that was the first to popped into my brain.

Edgerton has seen his stock rise faster than almost anyone I can remember in the last year. He's been around for awhile, but it was Animal Kingdom that put him in the front of everybody's mind as a potential leading man. He recently saw his name near the top of the list for The Bourne Legacy. He'll be starring in Warrior, the awesome looking MMA drama featuring Tom Hardy. He'll be starring opposite Jennifer Garner in The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and will be one of the leads in the reboot of The Thing. And there's still the possibility of him joining Snow White and the Huntsman opposite Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart. Guh.

Here's the thing, nobody's going to want to see a film about a failed attempt to kill Bin Laden. They're going to want to see the story of how he died, about the men who finally took him down. So I expect there will be a movie more focused on that sooner than we think. As for Bigelow's film, his death will make for a nice bookend to the story she wants to tell.