3. Josh Singer - The Fifth Estate
Outside of the ACLU and civil libertarians the world over, the next happiest people about Edward Snowden's revelation of the NSA's secret phone record collecting and internet info gathering programs has to be the producers of The Fifth Estate. People who previously may have dismissed Julian Assange as a deranged anti-American hacktivist may have a sudden new interest into his story. In fact, I don't think you could have asked for much better free publicity except maybe if Snowden had waited a bit closer to the film's release to begin the whistle-blowing. The Fifth Estate, if you didn't already know or didn't pick up from the last paragraph, focuses on the life of the infamous Julian Assange. A lily-white Australian activist who founded the website Wikileaks, which with the cooperation of US Army soldier Bradley Manning published numerous classified materials belonging to the United States government, Assange has become a simultaneously revered and reviled character depending on who you talk to. Regardless of your political persuasion though, Assange has undeniably been a transformative individual when it comes to understanding the internet's role in disseminating information, and his controversial story could make for a good cinematic retelling. The film's script is written by Josh Singer, who up to this point has worked exclusively in television, most notably on the Aaron Sorkin created series The West Wing. Given the Sorkin connection and the fact the film tackles a contemporary legend of the cinematically neophyte subject matter of the internet, many comparisons of the film are already being made to David Fincher's excellent 2010 hit, The Social Network. Like that film, The Fifth Estate is said to concentrate heavily on the fractured relationship between former partners, in this case Jullian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg (played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Brühl, respectively), which should add in a good dose of human drama along with any political overtones the film carries. Whether the NSA likes it or not (and if you're reading this NSA, how do you like my writing style? Any comments or suggestions?), I suspect The Fifth Estate could be a serious Oscar contender. As long as director Bill Condon is on his A-game, the film has a fighting chance, and even if he isn't, the film may be able to follow J.C. Chandor's Margin Call's route and sneak in a writing nomination anyway.