Following their work together on David O. Russell’s 2013 Best Picture-nominated crime comedy American Hustle, Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale are in talks to reteam on Best of Enemies, a new film based on the book Best of Enemies: The Last Great Spy Story of the Cold War by Eric Dezenhall and Gus Russo.
American Hustle‘s Eric Warren Singer is aboard to script the pic, with Atlas Entertainment‘s Charles Roven (Oppenheimer) aboard to produce. While Netflix and Apple have been reported as leading the chase for the package, Deadline understands that it’s still in play with the full array of studios and streamers. There’s no word yet on who will direct the pic, but we hear there’s a possibility that Cooper could step behind the camera here following his work on the leading awards contender Maestro.
Published by Hachette imprint Twelve in 2018, Best of Enemies tells the story of CIA agent Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko, a pair of Cold War spies who developed an unlikely friendship at a time when they should have been anything but. Platt and Vasilenko were new entrants to the Washington, D.C. intelligence scene back in 1978, with the former working out of the CIA’s counterintelligence office and the latter, out of the Soviet Embassy. Remarkably, they came to establish strong personal ties, even after each was sent to seduce the other into betraying their country.
The pair were involved with solving some of the most famous spy stories of the 20th century, including the rooting out of Soviet mole Robert Hanssen. While Vasilenko spent some time in a Soviet prison after it came to the government’s attention that he’d been working as a double agent for the U.S., he was ultimately freed with help from the CIA during the Spy Swap of 2010. Among other advocates during his period of incarceration was none other than American Hustle‘s Robert De Niro.
Sources say Cooper will play Platt, with Bale as Vasilenko.
Cooper is coming off writing, directing, producing and starring in Maestro, an acclaimed Netflix drama surrounding the complex relationship between famed composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre, which hit theaters in limited release last month and debuts on the streamer on December 20th.
Recently lending his voice to the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, Bale was previously seen in films including Netflix’s Edgar Allan Poe pic The Pale Blue Eye, David O. Russell’s Amsterdam, and Thor: Love and Thunder.
Coming off of the huge success of Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-contending historical epic Oppenheimer, which grossed over $950M worldwide in theaters, Roven also has on his dance card James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy, which bows in theaters in 2025.
Today’s Best of Enemies news was first reported by Insneider.
