An Egyptian director says he “hated” Clint Eastwood’s blockbuster “American Sniper” and its portrayal of the villain Mustafa so much, he is making his…
An Egyptian director says he “hated” Clint Eastwood’s blockbuster “American Sniper” and its portrayal of the villain Mustafa so much, he is making his own movie to lobby against it.
Amr Salama, the award-winning director of “Sheikh Jackson, ” which will be featured at the Toronto Film Festival next month, says he already has a script called “Iraqi Sniper” to tell a compassionate story about Eastwood’s mysterious Arabic villain.
Bradley Cooper starred in the 2014 box-office hit as US marksman Chris Kyle, who was pitted against a mysterious sniper on the side of the Iraqi insurgents.
In real life, there was a top sniper fighting for the Iraqis, given the nickname Juba, whose murderous exploits were celebrated in a number of videos released between 2005 and 2007. It was rumored he had once been an Olympic athlete.
Salama tells the Hollywood Reporter he is making it partly because he was sickened by Eastwood’s movie.
“That was my inspiration — I hated it so much that I wanted to work on a different version of that story.”
In “Iraqi Sniper, ” he says, Mustafa will be the hero.
“Whereas ‘American Sniper’ was pro-war, ” says the director, “I’ m trying to make an anti-war film.”
Salama says he is working with two of the region’s biggest names: prolific 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, ” Hefzy says. “He’s a very interesting character, a complex character. Amr did a lot of research and we’ re trying to get his evolution right.”
He says at least one of the actors who was in “American Sniper, ” Sammy Sheik, is attached to the film.
