Clint Eastwood has reportedly set his next project, a film based on the thwarted ISIS-inspired terror attack in 2015 in which a gunman opened fire on a high-speed train traveling to Paris.
According to Deadline, the legendary director has signed on to helm The 15:17 to Paris, based on the 2016 book The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story Of A Terrorist, A Train, And Three American Heroes.
The book details the true story of three Americans — Anthony Sadler, Oregon National Guardsman Aleksander Skarlatos, and former U.S. Airman Spencer Stone — and their heroic effort to stop an Ak-47-wielding attacker.
The foiled attack became the subject of much media attention as Sadler, Skarlatos and Stone become international heroes for their efforts to stop terrorist Ayoub el-Khazzani.
The feature marks Eastwood’s third director-producer partnership with Warner Bros., after 2014’s American Sniper and 2016’s Oscar-nominated Sully.
Eastwood presented Sadler, Skarlatos and Stone with the “Hero Award” at the 2016 Guys Choice Awards in June.
“I’m such a huge Clint Eastwood fan. I’ve seen all of his movies growing up,” Skarlatos told People magazine last year. “Actually meeting him in person, having him give us the award. Then we talked with him for like 10 minutes afterwards. It was one of the coolest experiences that has happened to us so far.”
Sadler and Skarlatos appeared on Breitbart News Daily last November to discuss their book.
“The narrative is often, ‘Oh, yeah, the military is why these guys were able to do that,’ but I think the book portrays us as just the three regular friends, twenty-something friends that we were, and that we were just put in an extraordinary situation,” Sadler said. “The circumstances just kind of fell into place where we were able to act and not only save ourselves, but everybody else.”
It’s just made me kind of, I guess, a little bit more worldly and appreciative of the United States because, I mean, honestly, Europe is going through a lot of issues right now, especially France, and I guess it’s just made me appreciate what I have here more because the rest of the world has it a lot rougher than we do, in a lot of ways,” Skarlatos added.
Production on The 15:17 to Paris will reportedly begin later this year.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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