Lionsgate and prolific producer Jerry Bruckheimer have set sights on relative newcomer Nicolai Fuglsig to helm upcoming wartime drama, Horse Soldiers.
Deadline has the scoop, noting that the Danish filmmaker – perhaps best known for his work as a photojournalist – will work in tandem with Black Label Media and screenwriters Peter Craig and Ted Tally in bringing the actioner to life. Rooted in post-9/11 Afghanistan, the feature film charts the trials and tribulations left facing a CIA crack team who plot course for the Middle East in a bid to dismantle the Taliban.
An early logline for the project reveals that it’ll focus on “a small band of special forces soldiers who rode on horses to confront the Taliban. Outnumbered 40 to 1, they pursued the enemy army across the mountainous Afghanistan terrain and, after a series of intense battles, captured the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which was strategically essential to defeat their opponent throughout the country. Soon, however, they find themselves even more outnumbered when hundreds of Taliban POWs actually try to ambush them, leaving the men in a desperate battle to survive and hold on to their military gains and lives.”
Doug Stanton’s non-fiction novel will serve as primary inspiration for Horse Soldiers, with Bruckheimer on board to produce. It’s too soon to tell whether Fuglsig’s adaptation will hue close to a post-9/11 thriller template in the vein of Zero Dark Thirty, though we’ll keep you posted as the project begins to pick up momentum.