Michael Bay’s predilection for explosions will be shifting their focus from the robo-orgy leanings of his Transformers franchise to a serious adaptation of real life events. 13 Hours is based on the Libyan shootings of September 2012, which left the U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead after Islamic militants attacked a U.S. compound.
Bay’s movie will chronicle the story of six members of a militarized security team, who attempted to rescue the Americans stationed at the U.S. State Department Special Mission Compound in Benghazi. Already enlisted to play the security team are John Krasinski (also of The Office), James Badge Dale (Stretch, Parkland), Max Martini (Pacific Rim) and Pablo Schreiber (Orange Is The New Black).
Fresh off a stint on Parenthood, which recently wrapped its final season, and a small, supporting role on True Detective season 2, David Denham will join the above crew. His addition to the team will be as an elite sniper named Boon.
Scripting duties on the project are currently being handled by Chuck Hogan. A familiar name to bookworms and small screen genre fans, the scribe co-wrote the hugely-successful trilogy of novels – which became FX series, The Strain – with Guillermo del Toro. For his current project, he’s leaving the prose behind and instead adapting the screenplay from the book by Mitchell Zuckoff. You can read the synopsis for his best-selling account below.
13 Hours will start shooting this April in Morocco and Malta.
13 HOURS presents, for the first time ever, the true account of the events of September 11, 2012, when terrorists attacked the US State Department Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA station called the Annex in Benghazi, Libya. A team of six American security operators fought to repel the attackers and protect the Americans stationed there. Those men went beyond the call of duty, performing extraordinary acts of courage and heroism, to avert tragedy on a much larger scale. This is their personal account, never before told, of what happened during the thirteen hours of that now-infamous attack.