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HBO Films plans movie about 'HOSTAGE CRISIS' in Iran
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30 years ago on November 4, 1979, a group of militant students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. An event that would captivate the world as it would begin a 444-day hostage crisis and doomed the Jimmy Carter administration.
Now HBO Films plans on make the ordeal into a movie as they have acquired the rights to "Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis, The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam", the book authored by Mark Bowden, who also authored "Black Hawk Down", that was turned into a movie back in 2001 directed by Ridley Scott.
Andrea Berloff, who scripted Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" will adapt the screenplay, while William Horberg ("Searching for Bobby Fischer" and "Milk") will serve as executive producer.
66 American hostages were taken as an expression of student outrage when the U.S. allowed ousted Shah of Iran into the country to be treated for his cancer. The action fueled the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his hardliners.
President Carter attempted a rescue of the hostages that ended disastrously and prolonged the stalemate, which would stain Carter's one-term run in the office for the next 14 months as he lost re-election to actor turned politican, the late Republican Ronald Reagan.
Reagan promptly unfroze $8 billion in Iranian assests and took credit for the release of the hostages on January 22, 1981, roughly less than two weeks into his administration.
Bowden's book was originally pitched to Paramount Pictures in 2003 for producer Scott Rudin ("No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood"), with the studio making a seven-figure commitment when Bowden had written only a two-page proposal. Horberg was the catalyst of the project's resurgence, after making proper visits to Iran for 10 days and meeting with Iranian filmmakers.
For more: Scott Rudin, William Horberg, Hostage Crisis and the aftermath
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