Rob Drops Out of 'Mission: Blacklist'

Robert Pattinson has exited “Mission: Blacklist,” an indie thriller about the hunt for Saddam Hussein, due to scheduling issues, TheWrap has learned.

First announced in May 2012, Pattinson was set to play military interrogator Eric Maddox, who spearheaded Hussein's capture.

That role will now be recast, and the filmmakers hope to start production this fall.

Swedish filmmaker Jesper Ganslandt remains attached to direct from a script by “Band of Brothers” scribe Erik Jendresen, Dylan Kussman and Trace Sheehan, who adapted Harper Collins’ 2008 book “Mission: Black List #1,” written by Maddox and Davin Seay.

Preferred Content's Ross Dinerstein is producing with Jendresen and Kevin Waller, as well as Bart Rosenblatt of Code Entertainment, which is also financing the film.

Pattinson has a busy spring with two films heading to Cannes — David Cronenberg's “Maps to the Stars” and David Michod's “The Rover.” He also recently wrapped the role of photographer Dennis Stock opposite Dane DeHaan's James Dean in Anton Corbijn's “Life.”

Looking ahead, Pattinson is attached to star alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in James Gray's “The Lost City of Z” and the James Marsh thriller “Hold On to Me” with Carey Mulligan. He's repped by WME, 3 Arts Entertainment, Curtis Brown Group and attorney Robert Offer.

Source: thewrap via rplife

Eric Maddox Talks about Mission: Blacklist and Rob

Transcript of Audio Interview

GRILLOT: So I have to mention here, as we're finishing up, your book Mission: Blacklist is going to be made into a film. Robert Pattinson's been cast to play you in your movie. How do you feel about that? What are we going to learn? What are we going to see in this film?

MADDOX: I'm very excited about it. The one thing I've asked is that the movie be as real as possible. And working with Rob, that's the one thing he insists on. He always asks me, 'Is this real? Did this happen?' So it's exciting. We'll see. 

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Jesper Ganslandt Confirmed as New 'Mission: Blacklist' Director

The Swedish invasion into Hollywood continues. Jesper Ganslandt has been tapped to direct Robert Pattinson in the psychological thriller Mission: Blacklist, about a brilliant young military interrogator who spearheads the capture of Saddam Hussein. Pic is based on the life of soldier-turned-intelligence agent Eric Maddox, who funneled his experiences into the 2008 nonfic book Mission: Black List #1 – The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein – As Told by the Soldier Who Masterminded His Capture. The Code Entertainment project was first announced last year in Cannes back when Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire was set to direct. Following Sauvaire’s departure Ganslandt stepped in and will make his English-language debut after directing three features, Blondie, The Ape, and Falkenberg Farewell, in his native Sweden. Filming is scheduled for the fall.

The script is by Band of Brothers scribe Erik Jendressen, Dylan Kussman, and Trace Sheehan. Ross M. Dinerstein of Preferred Content is producing alongside Jendressen and Kevin Waller, with Code Entertainment producing and financing the project. Jesper is repped by Paradigm and Magnolia.

Deadline

Dylan Kussman, Mission: Blacklist screenwriter, has tweeted updates on Mission: Blacklist. Tweets about Script re-writes and filming locations.

@DylanKussman via RPLife

'Mission: Blacklist' Filming Begins This August

Now, the story is about to go public in a very mainstream way. Maddox wrote a book a couple of years ago. You probably haven't seen much of it, but a movie studio immediately bought the rights.

Robert Pattinson, of Twilight fame, has signed on to play Maddox, and the screenplay is being done by the writer behind "Band of Brothers". 

Shooting begins this August.

Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld was so eager to keep Maddox's services, that he established a civilian force of interrogators, hiring Maddox as the very first one.

His work for the Department of Defense continues to this day.

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New Interview with Dylan Kussman, Misson Blacklist's Screenwriter

Tell us about your work for Mission: Blacklist and how you ended up being a part of this project?

"I became involved with Mission: Blacklist when head writer and Executive Producer Erik Jendresen contacted me about contributing to the project. At the time, he and his co-writer Trace Sheehan were deeply immersed in adapting Staff Sergeant Maddox's book, Mission: Black List #1, and were looking for an additional voice to help flesh out the main character and structure his remarkable story as a movie. It was an honor to be asked to collaborate with two such accomplished and well-respected writers, on a story with such an incredible pedigree, and I accepted without a moment's hesitation."

Was it complicated for you to work on this book and, particularly, on this subject?

"The most challenging part about working on the project for me personally was absorbing the vast amount of research Erik and Trace had compiled before I came onboard. On top of the book itself, there were hundreds of pages of interviews they'd conducted with the Staff Sergeant, firsthand accounts of the Iraq War and of the American presence in Baghdad and Tikrit after Saddam's fall -- I had to get up to speed in a hurry. Once I'd gotten on top of the material, however, I was fortunately able to see a strong and clear contribution I could make towards rendering this soldier's mind-bending ordeal into a piece of dramatic cinema. Incredible human beings don't always make compelling onscreen protagonists, but between the work we've done as writers, Jean Stephane Sauvaire's guiding hand as director, and Robert Pattinson's committment to playing this inspiring figure with the fearless honesty for which he's known, I don't think that will be the case here."

Eric Maddox Talks about Rob and Mission: Blacklist

Eric Maddox - interrogator, author and OU alumnus explained the process of finding and capturing Saddam Hussein and detailed the dilemmas he faced to about 300 people in Oklahoma Memorial Union’s Molly Shi Boren Ballroom.

This same story is encapsulated in his book, “Mission: Blacklist #1,” on which a movie will be based starring Robert Pattinson, who will play Maddox. 

“Somebody wants to make a movie about my story - it’s very exciting,” Maddox said.

Maddox said he has already met and gotten to know Pattinson.

“He’s a great guy,” Maddox said. “When they brought his name up to me, I had never heard of him before. I don’t believe in vampire movies and stories. I just didn’t know who he was.”

Maddox said he wore a single blue shirt for months in his search for Hussein, with no other changes of clothes. The shirt has a bigmouth bass embossed on it, Velcro pockets and bloodstains.

“I’ve still got it [the shirt.] I think Rob is gonna wear it in the movie,” Maddox said.

Maddox had to wait five years to tell his story and write the book due to the U.S. government preferring to keep it classified, he said.

“Since then, the United States government wanted me to endorse the movie, and wanted me to say who I am and what I do,” he said.

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New/Old Picture of Rob and Eric Maddox (November 2012)

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'Mission: Blacklist' Filming Schedule and Location Update

According to Embankment Films, there's been an update to the schedule. 

Start of Principal Photography - April 2013
Delivery: Summer 2014.

To an email sent to @blacklistmovie, Embankment Films confirms the schedule and says they will NOT be filming in Iraq.

From @blacklistmovie:

Confirmation of SPP April 2013; Delivery Summer 2014 for Mission: Blacklist came via email from Hugo Grumbar, a partner @ EMBANKMENT FILMS.

More Mission: Blacklist update directly from Embankment Films re filming location "It will not be Iraq, they start shooting in April."

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'Mission: Blacklist' Director, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, Talks About Rob and the Movie

Starts around 18:30 and goes on for about 5 minutes

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Transcript (RPLife)

You worked with Robert Pattinson? How was it to work with the star?

It seems at the same time that rob pattinson ... I was interested in Robert because the same, I think he has in real life, he has a great personality and that's why he's so famous today. That's why everybidy likes him like this because he's so unique and I'm really interested working with this guy because ... and I saw Cosmopolis for example, his last film, and I think he did a great performance, you know, he's amazing in the film, he's totally different as in real life, at the same time you believed his character. I mean he's amazing and the character he has to do in my film, in 'Mission Blacklist', it's a tough character, I mean it's not at all what we can imagine from Rob Pattinson, or what we know about this guy so it's gonna be really interesting I'm sure he's gonna be great because he's really intense and he has this ... I know that he is a great actor inside, I'm really exciting in working with him on this film and we're gonna do the same, you know living in Iraq, doing some rehearsals and as it's based on a true story we're gonna work with Eric Maddox, who's the real person on which is based the story so it's gonna be interesting to mix work with as well Iraqi non professional actors because the film is in Iraq, it () during the war, I want to, the same, you know, in being between fiction and documentary.

 So you go on the lines, on the borderlines? You have no problem to go borderlines? You know to do, to shoot a movie in Iraq?

I think to do a good movie, to do a movie you need to take risks, if you know before anything, if you calculate everything ... we don't know how to do good movies so I think it's important to take risks, and try to find different ways of making films actually, not doing all the same, that's maybe a punk attitude as well but not doing as everybody's doing, same number of days of shooting, same coût?(cost in french), same kind of set, of (???) . No, we have to try to change, it can be like doing a film with three people, something with like a 100 people in a coût?, whatever, I mean trying to imagine some different stuff, even different way of walking with the actors and different way of shooting the film, that's what really interest me. That's why I walked so long as an A.D (Assistant Director), as well as trying to (???). That's a French film but we can, it's not the same script so we have to find a way of doing the film differently, as any film, you know. Even on the way you shoot the film so going in Iraq for me it's really important because it's gonna be like so different shooting there as shooting in LA in a studio for example for the actors, I mean being there and understand how it was and meeting the Iraqis who are like unique and intense and great people and understand this culture and everything, I think it's part of the process.

Rob talks about 'The Rover' and 'Mission: Blacklist' with The Playlist

Catching up with Pattinson as he did press rounds for "Cosmopolis," he filled us in on what we might expect from Michôd's follow-up to his crime drama "Animal Kingdom." Set to shoot next year, "The Rover" boasts some pretty big ideas behind its deceptively simple set up. "It's a kind of a western," Pattinson explained. "It's very existential. It's really interesting. I couldn't really explain to you what it's about but it's sort of about how much pain can the world take and how much disgust and cruelty before love dies. I think that's kind of what it's about." (Cronenberg, who was in the room, chimed in with: " That sounds pretty heavy!")

Pattinson will co-star in the film with Guy Pearce, with the near-future-set story centering on a man who journeys across the Australian outback to find his stolen car, which contains something invaluable to him. However, Pattinson admits that perhaps his description might be a little more highfalutin than the actual movie. "David Michôd's going to read this and be like 'What the fuck are you talking about? It's a crime movie,' " he said with a laugh.

As for when "The Rover" is coming out, Pattinson admitted it is later than he originally wanted. "I wish it was shooting this fall," he said. "I was supposed to be doing this movie this fall but that was pushed to after 'The Rover,' which is a good thing because it needs a ton of work. But I really wish I could move 'The Rover' up. I've got to find something else to do."

When it came down to casting, Cronenberg had to ask some essential questions: "How old is this character? How old are the actors around? Who can do the New York accent even if they're not from around there? Who has the star power to get you financing, which is always an issue?" Finally the director decided on Pattinson, best known for his role as vampire Edward Cullen in the insanely popular "Twilight" series. Even with Cronenberg's considerable cache, it took him a while to sell Pattinson on the project. Ten days, to be exact.

"I suddenly realized I had no idea how to do it at all," Pattinson said, seeming slightly embarrassed about the whole episode. "I knew it was really good but I was terrified of even calling. Actors are always trained to bullshit, even if you hate something. And I had nothing to say, at all. Because David did the script he obviously knows what it's about. As soon as I said, 'I don't know what it's about,' and he said, 'Me neither.'" And while that was reassuring to the actor, it wasn't the end. "Then I spent a week trying to figure out how to get out of it, where I got to the point where I was going to have to call up and say, 'I'm too scared because I don't think I'm a good enough actor and I'm a pussy.' I didn’t want to have that conversation."

Thankfully that conversation didn't happen, mostly because Cronenberg assured Pattinson that he was "absolutely the right person" for the role. And with Pattinson, the movie had an actual fighting chance of getting made (with a lesser box office draw, this would have been more or less an impossibility). "Well it was certainly a thrill to be able to help it get made… Especially one like this," Pattinson said. The actor said that Cronenberg was so legendary that Pattinson wasn't even sure he was still making movies. "He's one of those directors where he's not even on a level of 'Oh yeah I really want to work with him.'" That's when Pattinson turned to Cronenberg and lovingly said, "You have an adjective!" To which Cronenberg exclaimed (with a kind of demented glee): "Cronenbergian!" Pattinson then continued: "It's kind of changed my whole perception of who I can work with. There are people who I grew up watching who are so part of the film language that you don't even realize that they're still making movies." Cronenberg then shot back: "That they're still alive! Which is what he's trying to say."

(...)

Whatever Cronenberg ends up shooting next, he would like Pattinson to come along for the ride. "We had a great time and we just know we could do something really cool together," Cronenberg said, noting that the long-gestating Bruce Wagner project "Map to the Stars" "could be" one of those projects. "We just don't know what it is. So if you've got any ideas, please let us know."

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