While the acquisitions landscape is showing signs of that pre-Cannes dullness, a big deal is in the works for Megan Ellison and her Annapurna Pictures to fully fund American Bullshit, the drama that has David O Russell attached to direct, with Christian Bale also attached and Bradley Cooper in talks. The Eric Singer-scripted drama–which not surprisingly will get a different title–is about the 70s FBI sting operation Abscam that took down a bunch of U.S. congressmen. It is being produced by Charles Roven and Richard Suckle through Atlas Entertainment. Sony Pictures is the likely distributor; Atlas developed the film there. The studio was always looking for a partner, but Ellison evidently has decided to take all the risk and fund a budget I’m told is in the mid-$30 million to $40 million range. The hope is to close a deal and start production in January, but deals have to be made with talent and Russell has several possible next projects, including the Warner Bros Colombian hostage rescue pic The Mission that has the eye of Brad Pitt.

You might remember Deadline wrote about the project after Russell’s camp initially denied he was involved (I stupidly held it), and then his name started surfacing in trade reports and I tried to decipher who was bullshitting whom. Deadline revealed then that the potential star was Bale, who won an Oscar in the Russell-directed The Fighter. Russell later confirmed to me that he was in discussions to reunite with the actor, but that this was only one of several projects he was considering. Now I’m hearing that Cooper is also part of the package that is being sewn up by CAA. This is starting to look real.

The deal isn’t done yet but it will bring It brings another topical pricey project to Annapurna, and maybe a Cannes warmup for Ellison. Last May, she seemed to be in the center of all the big deals. That included the Kathryn Bigelow-directed Mark Boal-scripted drama about the Navy SEAL Team 6′s long and ultimately successful hunt for 9/11 mastermind and Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, which Ellison placed at Sony Pictures; a massive deal in the $20 million range for the rights to turn The Terminator into two features that would complete the James Cameron-created franchise; a distribution deal with The Weinstein Company for the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed drama on a man who creates a religion in the 1950s and soon is treated as a deity when it takes off; and another Harvey Weinstein deal to distribute the John Hillcoat-directed The Wettest County in the World, which is now called Lawless.

滬江娛樂快訊：在完成了《黑暗騎士崛起》之后，“蝙蝠俠”克里斯蒂安·貝爾將與《斗士》導演大衛(wèi)·O·拉塞爾再次聯(lián)手，出演根據(jù)真實事件改編的犯罪劇情片《美國騙局》（American Bullshit）。與拉塞爾剛剛合作了《烏云背后的幸福線》的布萊德利·庫珀也在洽談加盟。

《美國騙局》由《跨國銀行》編劇艾瑞克·希格編寫，故事根據(jù)80年代的一出政治丑聞改編。FBI在上世紀70、80年代期間，雇傭特工假扮成阿拉伯富翁賄賂了多名議員。當時共選擇了31名官員作為目標，結(jié)果一個美國參議員、五名眾議員、一名新澤西州參議員、一名移民局官員和其他一些政府官員被指控有腐敗行為。這一事件后來被稱作“螫刺行動”或稱盯梢行動（即著名的美國釣魚執(zhí)法案，代號“ABSCAM”）。

《美國騙局》的劇本曾經(jīng)入圍2010年的“好萊塢劇本黑名單”（被買下但因各種原未拍成電影的優(yōu)秀劇本）。此前，本·阿弗萊克也曾對這個劇本產(chǎn)生興趣，不過最終大衛(wèi)·O·拉塞爾成為了更適合的導演人選。據(jù)悉，影片的預算大概在3000萬-4000萬美元的水平。

截至目前，正式的合約尚未簽訂，不過這個主創(chuàng)陣容成型的可能性非常大。影片計劃在明年1月正式開拍。