Fresh from helming The Rover, David Michôd is writing and will direct The Operators, which will star Brad Pitt as the four-star general who led US and NATO forces in the war against Afghanistan.
Pitt will play General Stanley McChrystal, who was stripped of his post by President Obama after he criticised the White House’s handling of the war in a Rolling Stone article.
The film will be produced by Pitt’s Plan B, New Regency and Brett Ratner and James Packer’s RatPac Entertainment, according to Deadline.com.
The screenplay is based on the book The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan by Michael Hastings, the reporter who wrote the Rolling Stone piece.
New York Magazine’s Frank Rich hailed the book as “an impressive feat of journalism by a Washington outsider who seemed to know more about what was going on in Washington than most insiders did.”
Hastings died in a car crash in Los Angeles last year, aged 33.
Roadshow will launch The Rover, which stars Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy, David Field, Anthony Hayes and Gillian Jones, in July.
Set in the near future in the Australian desert, the plot follows a loner named Eric (Pearce), whose car is stolen by thieves. Eric forces one of the wounded gang members, Rey, (Pattinson) to help him retrieve the car.
A24 will release the thriller, written by Michôd and based on a story he conceived with Joel Edgerton, in the US.