Oliver Stone Selects Pro-Snowden Book to Shape Movie of Famed Leaker

Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden project is taking shape, and it appears the film will take a favorable look at the controversial whistleblower.

Stone’s film will be partly based on Time of the Octopus, a novel written by Snowden’s Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena. The book tells a story similar to the real-life saga of Snowden, who leaked sensitive U.S. secrets for what he claimed was the greater good.

Here is Kucherena describing his own work:

The more I engaged in the Edward Snowden case, the more I was impressed by his story. To understand Edward and his actions, I had to ‘tune to his wavelength’ and try to balance between the rational and intuitive perception of his world. Having experienced these incredible sensations, I realized that I had to write about them, but only in the form of a novel that would not claim any sophisticated philosophical conclusions.

Stone, in turn, raved about Octopus, saying its tale of totalitarian power makes “a chilling, prescient horror story.”

Stone also will use Luke Harding’s book The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man to shape his screenplay. The production is set to start before year’s end.