Joe Berlinger, the groundbreaking U.S. director known for HBO’s Emmy-winning true crime docuseries “Paradise Lost,” is set to direct a feature film that will reimagine the cold war thriller “Fail-Safe.”
The 1962 novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, which was originally adapted for the big screen by Sidney Lumet, depicts a harrowing scenario in which a “fail-safe” mechanical failure jams the United States military’s chain of command and sends the country hurtling toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
According to a statement, Berlinger’s take on the novel will use a “faux-cinéma vérité approach” to “reimagine what the world would look like today had the events in the book really happened in 1967, with the total nuclear annihilation of New York and Moscow.” The film “will combine high-stakes international drama and classic documentary-style storytelling to reinvent the Cold War political thriller for new audiences.”
Lumet’s successful 1964 film starred Henry Fonda as a level-headed U.S. president and Walter Matthau as a trigger-happy political theorist. A TV version with Richard Dreyfuss, George Clooney and Harvey Keitel revisited the subject in 2000.
Berlinger’s contemporary reimagining of “Fail-Safe,” which is now in development, will be produced by Los Angeles-based Maria Farinha Films & Co. It’s the newly established U.S. outpost of Brazilian social impact entertainment company Maria Farinha Films, a leading Latin American studio known for its hit Globoplay Original “Aruanas.”
Maria Farinha Films also holds a minority stake in Joanna Natasegara’s London-based production company Violet Films, which is known for high-profile docs such as “White Helmets,” “Virunga,” “The Edge of Democracy” and Prince Harry’s Netflix series “Invictus.” MFF & Co is headed by U.S. producer Miura Kite, former EVP of global television at Participant.
“’Fail-Safe’ is a gripping and immersive story that feels just as relevant today as when it first captured readers’ imaginations in 1962,” Kite said in a statement. “We are honored to be a part of this extraordinary project, led by the visionary Joe Berlinger, whose body of work has continuously inspired audiences worldwide and sparked real change.”
Commented Estela Renner, MFF & Co’s co-founder and chief creative officer: “I have long admired Joe Berlinger’s work, from his powerful documentary ‘Crude’ about oil pollution in the Amazon Rainforest to his exceptional collaboration with actors and the striking visual concept in ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.’ The world has come alarmingly close to nuclear accidents in the past, and this film highlights the essential importance of the nuclear issue in an era of growing debate about privatization and the use of artificial intelligence in decision-making. There’s nothing like the universe of fiction to bring a global topic like this to the forefront of people’s minds.”