Watch Benedict Cumberbatch play Assange in 'The Fifth Estate' trailer

The trailer for the new movie, The Fifth Estate, a fictionalised account of the Wikileaks saga, and more specifically, of the life of whistleblower Julian Assange, is out. Check it out below:

Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder who leaked confidential information on the US military’s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to newspapers including the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel. The film is partially based on Guardian writers David Leigh and Luke Harding’s book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy and has already been described by Assange as ‘massive propaganda attack’. [caption id=“attachment_970717” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A still from The Fifth Estate.[/caption] The film’s director, Bill Condon, has however, defended the film against Assange’s claims. “He (Assange) is somebody who doesn’t really take well to presenting any other side,” says Condon in an interview to the Vulture website. “The important thing to know is that I think he’s going to be surprised when he sees the movie, because in no way is it an anti-WikiLeaks movie. It celebrates the idea of WikiLeaks and the tremendous potential of it. It does tell the story of its rise and how it came apart to a certain degree, but it’s also not in any way a movie that intends to malign him, starting with Benedict’s performance: He’s a wonderful actor whose impulse is to understand someone, not to criticise him,” he said. The movie is slated to release this October.