Paul Greengrass’ Netflix film will be about a 2011 mass murder in Norway

Paul Greengrass is the latest A-list director to work for Netflix. His live streaming feature motion picture will concern the case of Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing terrorist who slaughtered 99 people in Norway in 2011 in the most horrific mass murder to take place in that country since the Second World War. Breivik started by setting off a fertilizer bomb outside the offices of the Norwegian Prime Minister, killing eight. Then he dressed in a police officer’s uniform, took a ferry ride to Utoya Island near Oslo, and systematically hunted down and killed teenagers attending a Labor Party Youth Camp. Breivik wrote a 1,500-page manifesto that was critical of both Muslim immigration and European liberalism. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum sentence that Norway exacts, the country not hav-ng the death penalty.  Greengrass intends to shoot the film in Norway, using local actors, for a budget of $20 million. Production begins in the fall of 2017.

Greengrass specializes in films based on contemporary situations and events. His 2002 film “Bloody Sunday” was a documentary-style account of the killing of Irish anti-interment activists by British soldiers. 2004’s TV film “Omagh” depicted a car bombing conducted by a splinter group of the IRA that opposed a ceasefire achieved between the terrorist group and the British government.  In 2006 Greengrass released “Flight 93” about a doomed airliner flight that was hijacked during 9/11 and was almost retaken from the terrorists by the passengers before plunging into an empty field in Pennsylvania. “The Green Zone” starred Matt Damon as the head of a team searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In 2013, Greengrass released “Captain Phillips,” which starred Tom Hanks as the captain of a merchant ship that was taken over by Somali pirates and then retaken by a Navy SEAL team.

Greengrass has also directed a series of films about Jason Bourne, a rogue former CIA agent, starring Matt Damon, based on a series of novels by the late Robert Ludlum.

“Breivik,” as Greengrass’ Netflix film is called, will be produced by Scott Rudin with Greg Goodman and Eli Bush. Greengrass wrote the screenplay of the terrorism thriller. The movie was picked up by Netflix after a stiff competition. Before the announcement of “Breivik,” Greengrass had been expected to make a film about Elliot Ness, possibly starring Matt Damon.