Kathryn Bigelow to direct Tom Hardy in post-9/11 drama ‘True American’

Oscar-winning filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow will direct Tom Hardy in the post-9/11 drama “The True American,” which will be produced by Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures, the filmmakers announced Wednesday night.

Based on the nonfiction book by New York Times journalist Anand Giridharadas, “The True American” tells the story of two men: self-styled “American terrorist” Mark Stroman, who murdered two immigrants in Texas in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Raisuddin Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi man who was trying to establish himself in the U.S. when he survived being shot in the head during Stroman’s rampage.

Stroman was apprehended and sentenced to the death, and Bhuiyan emerged as one of Stroman’s biggest supporters, fighting to have his life spared.

“True American” will mark Bigelow’s third consecutive film to explore the post-9/11 landscape after “The Hurt Locker,” the Iraq war thriller, and “Zero Dark Thirty,” which dramatized the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Ellison, the daughter of Silicon Valley billionaire Larry Ellison, also produced “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Bigelow will coproduce “True American” through her production shingle, First Light.

Hardy meanwhile is coming off rave reviews for his one-man show “Locke,” in which he spends the entire movie inside a car. His other upcoming films include the crime drama “The Drop” and the post-apocalyptic actioner “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

A screenwriter for “The True American” has yet to be named.