LOS ANGELES: Amr Salama, the Egyptian director, who “hated” Clint Eastwood’s ‘American Sniper’ is making his own movie to lobby against it.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Egyptian director is all set to the “other side of the story of ‘American Sniper’, the story about the villain,” with his movie ‘Iraqi Sniper’.
In Clint Eastwood’s 2014 Box Office smash American Sniper, Bradley Cooper starred as top U.S. marksman Chris Kyle.
His chief antagonist in the film was a mysterious sniper on the side of the Iraqi insurgents who went by the name of Mustafa.
Talking about the movie, the director shared, “He’s the hero in my film. I hated it. That was my inspiration — I hated it so much that I wanted to work on a different version of that story.”
Salama also noted that he is making it partly because he was sickened by Eastwood’s movie.
“I’m trying to make an anti-war film. Whereas American Sniper was pro-war,” noted Salama.
The director is working with two of the region’s biggest names, producer Mohamed Hefzy, with whom Salama collaborated on both ‘Sheikh Jackson’ and his 2014 hit ‘Excuse My French’ and Hany Abu-Assad, the Palestinian director who earned Oscar nominations for both ‘Paradise Now’ and ‘Omar.’
“This story merits to be told even if American Sniper hadn’t come out. He’s a very interesting character, a complex character. Amr did a lot of research and we’re trying to get his evolution right,” explained Mohamed Hefzy.
The director also revealed that Sammy Sheik, the actor who played he sniper in ‘American Sniper’ is in negotiations to star in the movie.