Best of Enemies (Bradley Cooper & Christian Bale Spy Thriller Lands At Amazon MGM After Massive Bidding Battle)

EXCLUSIVE: In the second whopping film pitch package deal of the day, Amazon and MGM Studios won Best of Enemies, an adaptation of the spy thriller that will star Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale, with Eric Warren Singer scripting and Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven producing. They all worked together on the 2013 Best Picture nominee American Hustle.

Cooper, drawing raves for his latest directing outing Maestro, is a possible to direct the film, but that hasn’t been settled yet.

Sources said that, like the untitled Ryan Reynolds pitch that was won by Netflix today, Best of Enemies had eight bidders in the mix, with Amazon and Warner Bros going down to the wire. The deal is high-seven figures for the writer and producer. It will be a theatrical release.

Best of Enemies might be the biggest pitch deal of the entire year, especially given the mid-seven figures Amazon MGM Studios will pay Singer to write the script. The theatrical guarantee provides an opportunity for MGM and Courtenay Valenti to show its worth with a big pic launch before the film lands on Amazon.

The pic is based on the book Best of Enemies: The Last Great Spy Story of the Cold War by Eric Dezenhall and Gus Russo. Singer’s scripting, and Roven (Oppenheimer) is producing with Madison Weireter and Ryan Sanak also part of the production team on behalf of Atlas.

Published by Hachette imprint Twelve in 2018, the book tells the story of CIA agent Jack Platt (Cooper) and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko (Bale), a pair of Cold War spies who developed an unlikely friendship at a time when they should have been anything but. Platt and Vasilenko were new entrants to the D.C. intelligence scene back in 1978, with the former working out of the CIA’s counterintelligence office and the latter out of the Soviet Embassy. Remarkably, they came to establish strong personal ties, even after each was sent to seduce the other into betraying their country.

The pair were involved with solving some of the most famous spy stories of the 20th century, including the rooting out of Soviet mole Robert Hanssen. While Vasilenko spent some time in a Soviet prison after it came to the government’s attention that he’d been working as a double agent for the U.S., he ultimately was freed with help from the CIA during the Spy Swap of 2010. Among other advocates during his period of incarceration was none other than American Hustle‘s Robert De Niro.

The deal proves that studios coming out of the strike are determined to end up with a package or two under their tree, and it is a reminder that coming to the table with a fully formed package with talent and a fleshed-out storyline is the best way to create huge commerce.

Cooper is repped by Range Media Partners, and Bale, Singer and Roven are with WME. Singer also is repped by Range.