Only two weeks after director David Gordon Green was announced to make Lionsgate’s Boston Marathon bombing film Stronger, Variety reveals that Peter Berg (Battleship, Friday Night Lights) is in final negotiations to direct CBS Films’ rival project, titled Patriots’ Day.
While Stronger is based on the non-fiction memoir by wounded bombing survivor Jeff Bauman, Patriots’ Day is taken from the account of Boston Police commissioner Ed Davis and will likely focus more on the chaos created by and ensuing manhunt for perpetrators Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Mark Wahlberg (Transformers: Age of Extinction, The Gambler) has been circling the role of Davis, but prior commitments and the fast-track nature of the project may prevent him from taking the role.
Berg is quickly becoming Wahlberg’s go-to director of choice, after their successful pairing on Lone Survivor and the currently-filming true-life thriller Deepwater Horizon (set to open September 30, 2016), as well as the Indonesia-set action film Mile 22, which is in pre-production. Whether he takes the role or not, Wahlberg is still onboard to produce Patriots’ Day with Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark of Bluegrass Films alongside Stephen Levinson and Michael Radutzky. Bridge of Spies scribe Matt Charman will provide the screenplay.
There is also a third movie based on the tragic bombing (which killed three and wounded 260) in development at 20th Century Fox titled Boston Strong, which had Daniel Espinoza (Safe House, Child 44) interested in directing and Casey Affleck to star last year.
