Tom Hanks Attached to Somali Pirate Film as Real-Life Captain

Money and Oscars.

To Hell with what they say out loud, that's what everyone wants when going into filmmaking. When you've reached the level of someone like Tom Hanks (who continues to be spoken in the same breath as Jimmy Stewart and will be until that day he leaves this mortal coil) and have achieved both awards and bank in spades, what else is there left to do? Keep chugging along, and Hanks, greatly to his credit, has a knack of picking projects appealing to the most mainstream of audiences (read: making lots and lots of money) and the critical community (read: continuing on and on with the afore-mentioned Stewart comparison – something I'd bet he loves hearing and to be fair what few wouldn't?)

In what might be his way of dusting off the awards shelf for Oscar #3, Hanks is attached to play real-life Captain Richard Phillips in a planned adaptation of his memoir A Captain's Story: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, "TOLDJA" reports. Based on the incident from two years ago, Phillips gave himself up to Somali pirates in order to save his crew and was, three days later, rescued by Navy SEALs.

The Social Network producing team of Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, Scott Rudin and Kevin Spacey will produce and Billy Ray is behind the keyboard writing. It's apparently his recently-handed-in script that sealed the deal and got Hanks onboard. Note to Hanks, Ray's a very capable director too (Breach and Shattered Glass).

Comments

[Matt]

I love Hanks, I love seeing his continued success. Like you said, he has achieved all that there is to achieve in acting, yet he never seems to let it go to his head like certain actors (Bale, Crowe, etc). He always seems like a very relatable, nice man. I think a lot of people like Hanks because it is good to see the nice guy succeed in Hollywood.