Diane Kruger and Eric Bana are in talks for Yuval Adler’s The Operative
BLOOM has announced today that Diane Kruger (In the Fade, Inglorious Bastards) and Eric Bana (Munich, Chopper, Lone Survivor) are in negotiations to star in Bethlehem director Yuval Adler’s espionage-thriller The Operative, the story of a woman recruited by the Mossad to go undercover in Tehran who becomes entangled in a complex triangle with her handler and her subject. The screenplay is written by Adler and adapted from the Israeli best-seller The English Teacher, written by former Israeli intelligence officer Yiftach Reicher Atir, culled from the real-life stories of Mossad operatives.
Spiro Films’ Eitan Mansuri (Foxtrot), Archer Gray’s Anne Carey (20th Century Women, The American, Mr. Holmes), and Match Factory Production’s Michael Weber and Viola Fügen (Foxtrot, Jupiter’s Moon) are set to produce The Operative. Academy Award nominee Teddy Schwarzman (The Imitation Game, Mudbound, upcoming Ben is Back) will executive produce and finance under his Black Bear Pictures banner. Le Pacte’s Jean Labadie is co-producing the film, which is supported by the Israeli Film Fund and Film and Medienstiftung NRW. Endeavor Content will handle U.S. sales with BLOOM introducing to foreign buyers next week at the Berlin Film Festival.
In The Operative, Rachel (Kruger), a rogue spy from Israel’s feared national intelligence force Mossad, vanishes without a trace while attending her father’s funeral in London. The only clue to her whereabouts is a cryptic phone call she places to her former handler Thomas (Bana), who is then summoned from Germany to Israel by Mossad. With Rachel’s life immersed in her assignments as part of a vast espionage effort against Iran’s nuclear program, Thomas must retrace her steps to determine what threats she may now pose to their operation, while also working to protect her.
Israeli writer/director Adler is known for the film Bethlehem, which won the Fedeora Award for Best Picture at the Venice Film Festival, as well as six Israeli Academy Awards. It was also the Israeli entry for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Academy Awards.
Are you guys interested in The Operative? Let us know in the comments.
