Jon Turteltaub, the director behind the National Treasure films as well as the upcoming The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, is in talks to direct a film based on the origins of the Greenpeace movement in the 1970s and 1980s — specifically, its founders, Bob Hunter and Rex Weyler.
I’m actually a little surprised that no one has attempted to put this story on film before, because the rise of this organization was quite an impressive feat from an unlikely alliance of teachers, pacifists and ecologists, who “attempted — often successfully — to disrupt American and French nuclear bomb tests, Japanese and Russian whaling ships and Norwegian infant harp seal hunters. In the process, they inadvertently started a movement that is still going strong nearly four decades later.”
The film will draw source material from two books: Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists and Visionaries Changed the World (written by Weyler) and Bob Hunter’s Warriors of the Rainbow: A Chronicle of the Greenpeace Movement. Though it isn’t confirmed yet, producers have been communicating with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) to handle script duties.
One of the producers, Janet Zucker, had this to say about the project:
“We want to look at these unlikely heroes who became activists in spite of themselves,” said Janet Zucker, who envisions the film as large-canvas pic but with an environmental message. “Jon likes to make a big adventure movies. And we’ve found that the best way to reach people’s hearts and minds is through entertainment.”
