Ben Affleck is Set To Direct and Star In The WWII Film GHOST ARMY For Universal Pictures
Ben Affleck is set to direct and star in a new World War II film for Paramount Pictures called Ghost Army. The script for the film was written by True Detective‘s Nic Pizzolato, and it’s based on the book The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery by Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles. There’s also a Netflix documentary called Ghost Army that the film is based on.
I absolutely love the story behind this film! Ghost Army tells the story of “a secret force that relied on sleight of hand and illusion to trick the Nazis in 1944. A group of soldiers including future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey, landed in France to conduct a secret mission. Armed with truckloads of inflatable tanks, a massive collection of sound-effects records, they created the illusion of troop strength on European battlefields of Europe, to trick the Germans into deploying their forces in the wrong places.”
It’s explained that the “secret force of 1100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops — the Ghost Army — dragged duffel bags of drawings and paintings through France and other European cities to stage phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. The campaign is credited with saving thousands of American lives.”
This is going to be a great project for Ben Affleck to be a part of. He’s become quite a talented director and as a war and history buff, this is a movie that I can’t wait to see!
Source: Deadline