Paramount has won a six-studio bidding war for Battle for Alcatraz, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film tells the story of a failed 1946 prison escape by six inmates at the famous San Francisco jail. The attempt incited a full-blown military response.
The project was pitched by Matt Charman who wrote the cold war thriller Bridge of Spies, the Cold War drama directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks that is currently in theaters.. It’s his first time producing. Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (Insidious) is also producing. The film was written by Neil Widener (Subdivision, Colorado) and Gavin James.
If this story sounds familiar, the prison has been the setting for a number of films including 1947’s Brute Force, the Clint Eastwood-led Escape from Alcatraz and Michael Bay’s The Rock from 1996.
The film is still in very early pre-production stages – there isn’t even an IMDb page for the project. No casting has been announced at this time. We’ll have more on it as news develops.