There was no government's intervention behind the making of "Zero Dark Thirty (2012)", so director Kathryn Bigelow and scribe Mark Boal insisted. The duo behind Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker" sat down with Martha Raddatz for an in-depth interview with ABC's "Nightline" to clarify swirling allegation that they both were given access to confidential information by the Obama administration.
"I certainly did a lot of homework, but I never asked for classified materials; to my knowledge, I never received any," said Boal during the Monday night, November 26 interview. "And I think as far as the controversy goes, you know, how can I put this - it was an election year."
The screenwriter went on stating, "It was surreal and bizarre to have... I mean there were major players in the Republican Party characterizing the script and the movie before I had written a word, and I found that just really baffling."
Still, Boal admitted that he did speak to insiders with knowledge of the Navy SEAL mission, but their identities were shielded in the movie. "They were proud of what they had done, but they had more or less resigned themselves to the fact that what they had done is not something they could talk about publicly," he explained.
"But one of the things a movie allows people to do is talk in a way that is a little bit freer because they know that movies can change the way people look, [and] that I don't have quite the same standards of having to reveal sources as I would if I was, let's say, running a front-page piece in the New York Times."
During the chat, Bigelow revealed that she used the original footage from ABC News that showed how Osama bin Laden was attacked in Abbottabad, Pakistan to make her movie. She reconstructed every detail of the location for the movie.
"Everything that we could find from that video we replicated," said Bigelow, "frame after frame after frame, and found tile that was identical to that, and built the house with every conceivable piece of information that we could find we replicated."
"Zero Dark Thirty" is set to open in the U.S. on December 19. The movie about Bin Laden raid was previously developed under the working title "Kill Bin Laden". Bigelow and Boal had been working on the project even before Bin Laden was murdered during a massive attack by the U.S. army in Pakistan in May 2012.
Lining up in the cast ensemble are Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, Edgar Ramirez, Chris Pratt, Jason Clarke and Kyle Chandler among others. The film was introduced at a special screening in Los Angeles on Sunday and has garnered positive early reviews so far.
"I certainly did a lot of homework, but I never asked for classified materials; to my knowledge, I never received any," said Boal during the Monday night, November 26 interview. "And I think as far as the controversy goes, you know, how can I put this - it was an election year."
The screenwriter went on stating, "It was surreal and bizarre to have... I mean there were major players in the Republican Party characterizing the script and the movie before I had written a word, and I found that just really baffling."
Still, Boal admitted that he did speak to insiders with knowledge of the Navy SEAL mission, but their identities were shielded in the movie. "They were proud of what they had done, but they had more or less resigned themselves to the fact that what they had done is not something they could talk about publicly," he explained.
"But one of the things a movie allows people to do is talk in a way that is a little bit freer because they know that movies can change the way people look, [and] that I don't have quite the same standards of having to reveal sources as I would if I was, let's say, running a front-page piece in the New York Times."
During the chat, Bigelow revealed that she used the original footage from ABC News that showed how Osama bin Laden was attacked in Abbottabad, Pakistan to make her movie. She reconstructed every detail of the location for the movie.
"Everything that we could find from that video we replicated," said Bigelow, "frame after frame after frame, and found tile that was identical to that, and built the house with every conceivable piece of information that we could find we replicated."
"Zero Dark Thirty" is set to open in the U.S. on December 19. The movie about Bin Laden raid was previously developed under the working title "Kill Bin Laden". Bigelow and Boal had been working on the project even before Bin Laden was murdered during a massive attack by the U.S. army in Pakistan in May 2012.
Lining up in the cast ensemble are Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, Edgar Ramirez, Chris Pratt, Jason Clarke and Kyle Chandler among others. The film was introduced at a special screening in Los Angeles on Sunday and has garnered positive early reviews so far.
