When it comes to brand names in the documentary game, few come with higher value than Alex Gibney. The filmmaker has staked a helluva reputation for delivering some of the best the genre has to offer with films like "Going Clear: Scientology And The Prison Of Belief," "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room," and the Oscar-winning "Taxi To The Dark Side." His documentaries often have the qualities of good drama or thrillers, telling gripping and fascinating stories that don’t just convey facts, but feelings. And he’s going to put those skills of weaving compelling narratives to use with his first feature film.
READ MORE: Berlin Review: Alex Gibney’s Chilling Cyber-Espionage Documentary ‘Zero Days’
Deadline reports Gibney will direct "The Action," which will still let the director play in the based-on-a-true-story wheelhouse. Penned by Scott Z. Burns ("Contagion," "The Informant!"), the ’70s set movie is inspired by the activists, who on the night of the Ali-Frazier fight in 1971, broke into FBI offices and stole documents proving they had been spying on anti-war and civil rights groups, and delivered them to the media. The activists were never caught, only revealing their identity in 2014 to the Washington Post.
The story was recently chronicled in the documentary "1971," which you can watch below, but we’re eager to see how it’s spun through the lens of Gibney and Burns.
