DreamWorks Studios has announced that principal photography has begun on the WikiLeaks drama The Fifth Estate. The film about the controversial website stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange and Daniel Brühl as Daniel Domscheit-Berg as well as Laura Linney Anthony Mackie David Thewlis Peter Capaldi Dan Stevens Alicia Vikander and Carice van Houten. The Fifth Estate will open in U.S. theaters on November 15 and be distributed domestically by Disney’s Touchstone label. Distribution internationally will be split among Disney DreamWorks partner Reliance and deals made through the studio’s partnership with Mister Smith Entertainment. Following Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Brühl) an early supporter and eventual colleague of Julian Assange (Cumberbatch) The Fifth Estate traces the heady early days of WikiLeaks culminating in the release of a series of controversial and history changing information leaks. The website’s overnight success brought instant fame to its principal architects and transformed the flow of information to news media and the world at large. Joining DreamWorks as a co-financier on The Fifth Estate is Participant Media. This will be the fifth collaboration between the two companies who previously partnered on Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln the 2011 Academy Award-winning smash The Help The Kite Runner and The Soloist. With a focus on real issues that shape our lives Participant creates social action and advocacy programs to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action. Some of their other films include An Inconvenient Truth Good Night and Good Luck Food Inc. Charlie Wilson’s War Waiting for Superman The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and the current Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film No. Bill Condon (Kinsey Dreamgirls The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) will direct The Fifth Estate from a screenplay by Josh Singer (TV’s Fringe The West Wing) based on Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding. The producers are Steve Golin and Michael Sugar with Participant’s Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King joining Richard Sharkey as executive producers. The Fifth Estate is a co-production between Afterworks and FBO with Hilde De Laere co-producing for FBO. The film is supported by the Belgian Tax Shelter for Audiovisual Production. Condon said “It may be decades before we understand the full impact of WikiLeaks and how it's revolutionized the spread of information. So this film won't claim any long view authority on its subject or attempt any final judgment. We want to explore the complexities and challenges of transparency in the information age and we hope enliven and enrich the conversations WikiLeaks has already provoked.”
