Definitely, Clint Eastwood would have a penchant for true stories and his American heroes! He is therefore preparing to put the cover with other glories of everyday life made in USA by working on the realization of a feature film dedicated to the foiled attack of the Thalys.
The 86-year-old actor and director would not be done with his great American heroes. Indeed, he had already directed American Sniper (where Bradley Cooper played Chris Pyle, sniper soldier, fighting in Iraq at the risk of his life) and Sully (where Tom Hanks played the role of Chesley Sullenberger managing to save the lives of all the passengers of his plane in the engines were damaged by migratory birds).
Clint Eastwood has still not said his last word! According to Deadline, he announced to Warner his intention to make a film that would reconstruct the foiled attack on the Thalys on August 21, 2015.
That day, while the train – coming from Amsterdam – was making the Brussels-Paris route, Ayoub El Khazzani came out of a toilet cubicle, guns in hand and carrying enough ammunition to murder several hundred people. He was then disarmed and neutralized by three American tourists who came to spend their holidays in Europe: Anthony Sandler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone. These young men were able to keep their cool and thus avoid a real massacre. Spencer Stone practiced martial arts and is a member of the U.S. Air Force while Alek Skarlatos is a member of the Oregon National Guard.
A few days later, the three men – who turned out to be childhood friends – were decorated by French President François Hollande with the Legion of Honor for avoiding "carnage" and "tragedy".
Thus, Clint Eastwood is always willing to stage his "American heroes". This film will therefore be the story of a drama aborted by a portraitist of heroic America. This news is all the more sensitive as it fell a few hours before the terrorist attack perpetrated Thursday night on the Champs-Elysées causing the death of a police officer and seriously injured two others as well as a tourist slightly.
The film's screenplay will be adapted from the book "The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of A Terrorist, A Train And Three American Heroes," co-written by the three men and Jeffrey E. Stern. This script was also signed by Dorothy Blyskal, recently a production assistant on the superhero film Logan.
No release date has yet been announced but filming should begin soon during this year 2017. We already know that we can trust Clint Eastwood to make us a real wonder of the 7th art.
