I'm still getting used to the fact that Brad Pitt is now an Oscar-winning producer — one wonders whether, like Michael Douglas before him, the acting award will come later, Either way, the man's no slouch in the off-screen department: aside from “12 Years a Slave,” the man's production credits range from “The Departed” to “Kick-Ass” to “The Tree of Life” to the (likely Cannes-bound) HBO feature “The Normal Heart.” And now “The Operators,” to which Pitt is also attached to star as US military general Stanley McChrystal.
As is often the case on his producing projects, Pitt's taste in collaborators is pretty forward-thinking: David Michod, the Australian director of the bristling, Oscar-nominated crime drama “Animal Kingdom,” will write and direct the project. Michod's second feature “The Rover,” a post-apocalyptic thriller starring Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson, is due for release this summer, and tipped to appear in the Cannes Film Festival lineup later this week.
The film will be based on Michael Hastings' bestselling book about McChrystal, a commander in the Afghanistan War who was compelled to resign after a “Rolling Stone” profile by Hastings quoted him making dismissive remarks about the Obama administration. In addition to McChrystal, the book offers a more far-reaching investigation into American operations in Afghanistan.
Pitt's Plan B production company will produce in collaboration with New Regency and Brett Ratner's RatPac label.