Vishal Bhardwaj to direct prequel to Zero Dark Thirty; will show Osama

Vishal Bhardwaj, whose last directorial was
Rangoon, will now focus on directing a
prequel to critically acclaimed movie Zero
Dark Thirty which is an American political
action-thriller that showed the decade-long
international manhunt for AL Qaeda leader
Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attack
rocked the United States.
When asked what would be different about
the story given that there have been a
number of movies made on the same
subject, Vishal told a leading daily, "While the
journey of the CIA from Tora Bora to
Abbottabad - as narrated in Zero Dark Thirty
- was absolutely fascinating, this film will
show you the other side of that fascinating
story - all this while they were hunting him,
how was the antagonist able to keep them
at bay." As the Junglee Pictures team
elaborates, there is so much the world is not
fully familiar with. We have understood this
story from the Western point - but we
perhaps don't understand it from the Asian
point. And they are "not fictionalizing the
story, only dramatizing it".
He further explained as to what would
essentially be the plotline of the story. "The
story is - What was Osama doing in all the
time between Tora Bora and the day the
choppers landed in Abbottabad? How did he
spend those years? How did he configure a
dish antenna to stay clued in to TV on 9/11?
How they move from Karachi to Swat Valley
to Abbottabad? How did the house at
Abbottabad get built? How did his wives get
to him? How did he record and send out his
messages for so long without being
intercepted? This ten-year journey is so
gripping, so interesting, there is so much
we don't really know or at least talk about,"
he said.
He further added, "Did you know Parvez
Musharraf, on several occasions when he
was in Abbottabad, used to go jogging on a
route that passed right in front of the house
where Bin Laden was? Did you know that
the attack on the Indian Parliament was
timed in order to give Osama breathing
space and enabled his escape from Tora
Bora? How can you stay a fugitive with all
the Western world out to get you, with all
the technology, all the satellites - how do
you dodge it all? With the ISI as partners in
hunting him, at least officially, while one part
of the ISI knew all along - this story is
fascinating. There is so much to be told."
When asked who would be the protagonist
of the story, the ace filmmaker said "We are
looking at this film from the perspective of
the man who is chosen to guard and host
the most important guest of Al-Qaeda in this
house - Ibrahim. He kept guarding and
protecting Osama for years. You need a
protagonist to tell this story, and Osama Bin
Laden cannot be this person. Ibrahim is a
very relatable character - the rest are all so
larger-than-life. The story starts from the
point where this man is in awe of the guest,
to the point where he feels compelled to
give him an eviction notice.
For ten years, Ibrahim's wife didn't know
that the person living upstairs in their house
was Osama Bin Laden!"

https://www.pinkvilla.com/entertainment/news/vishal-bhardwaj-direct-prequel-zero-dark-thirty-will-show-osama-bin-ladens.