Movie News and Rumors: Oliver Stone to Direct Edward Snowden Film

Jun 02, 2014 08:13 PM EDT

Oscar winning director Oliver Stone is getting behind the camera again, this time to film the Edward Snowden story.

According to the Guardian, The film will be produced by longtime Stone partner Moritz Borman and will be based on "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Want Man," by Guardian journalist Luke Harding.

Snowden leaked massive quantities of information and documents to Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald in June 2013, and was the focus of a furious manhunt by the US government before taking asylum in Russia.

The film will be Stone's latest spin on a contemporary political issue that is stoked in controversy. Among his many pictures, he has made films about the JFK assassination and the watergate break-ins that created a lot of debate about each subject, so he is not afraid of controversial topics. He has directed over 20 films.

Published earlier this year, "The Snowden Files" chart the inner battles that a young twentysomething Snowden faced, as he decided to go against many of his beliefs to expose the governments surveliance practices.

According to the story, Snowden was a committed Republican voter who found his libertarian-leaning values increasingly at odds with his government's surveillance program.

Although many practices were exposed that have since been curtailed, The former NSA employee, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, still faces a 30-year prison sentence if he returns to the US.

Secretary of state John Kerry later conceded that the NSA's program had "reached too far" and should be reined in, and the Guardian and the Washington Post both went on to win the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service for their groundbreaking reporting of NSA surveillance

"This is one of the greatest stories of our time," Stone said in a statement.

Shooting is scheduled to begin before the end of the year.