Osama's death prompts Hollywood rewrites

The response in Hollywood to Osama bin Laden’s death has been just one word: Rewrite. Several films have been in the works over the years with Al Qaeda’s elusive leader at their centre,  writes Chris Lee in the Daily Beast. Now they have their climax. Kathryn Bigelow who won the Oscar in 2008 for the Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker has been working on a film about the hunt for bin Laden. Now they finally have an ending for their movie. [caption id=“attachment_5797” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Kathryn Bigelow who won the Oscar in 2008 for the Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker, has been working on a film about the hunt for bin Laden. Kevin Winter/Getty Images”]  [/caption] In 2006, Paramount acquired the rights to a tell-all by a CIA insider about a military mission to kill Osama in 2001. That mission went nowhere. Neither did the film, which was supposed to have been directed by Oliver Stone. George Clooney has optioned the courtroom drama about the trial of bin Laden’s bodyguard/driver. But who knows whether that will see the light of day now that the big fish himself has been caught. Bin Laden, of course, has already popped up on screen, writes Lee. He showed up in the animated comedy serial South Park in an episode called Osama bin Laden has Farty Pants. But the recently released videos of the mastermind of terror might put a crimp on his bogeyman image. This is a man who dyed his beard black before taping his messages to the world. Apparently the jihadi crowd skews young. There is something deeply pathetic about the image of bin Laden watching himself on television. He strangely resembles Rabindranath Tagore – big overcoat, flowing white beard and some kind of monkey cap. Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the New York Times that he spent his days “consumed by dark arts and domesticity". The article does not spell out the “dark arts” he practiced. But perhaps that image gives a clue to the last Hollywood reincarnation of Osama bin Laden – not the Dr. No of Terror but a wizard out of the world of Harry Potter, a dark lord who dyed his beard to still be relevant to a world that had moved on.