Alex Gibney — who is best known as the director behind acclaimed documentaries like last year’s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, and, of course, the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side — is finally going to try his hand at fiction filmmaking.
The Action is the title given to Gibney’s first narrative film and, judging by the plot details that have been released so far, “action” is definitely something viewers can expect to find in abundance. Set in the 1970s, the film will follow eight anti-war activists on their journey toward exposing J. Edgar Hoover — the infamous FBI director who used unethical surveillance techniques to aide his staunch anti-Communist crusade. The political thriller is “inspired by true events,” presumably based loosely off of the activists that actually did unveil confidential surveillance information.
The film, which is being distributed through Lionsgate, will be written by The Bourne Ultimatum‘s Scott Z. Burns. Additional details on the film’s production have yet to be revealed.