Netflix just made a huge investment… a $60 million dollar investment, in fact, on upcoming feature War Machine, which stars Brad Pitt.
Though Netflix doesn’t actually share their budget publicly, The Hollywood Reporter is stating that an anonymous source claims the streaming company was willing to pay the cash for the film, which will be directed by David Michod. According to their source, other studios had asked to lower the asking price of $60 to $70 million, but Michod and Pitt decided to stand their ground, so they eventually approached Netflix.
The film is an adaptation of a book by the late Michael Hastings about Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. However, instead of a gritty, dramatic war movie, this adaptation is rumored to be an edgier comedy. In this film, Pitt will play the main character, who is well-known for resigning from his post after making comments about Vice President Joe Biden in 2010. These comments, which were also about other White House officials, appeared in a Rolling Stone article by Hastings, and then in his book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan.
The film is set to be released in 2016, and shooting is scheduled to begin in August.
