Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American political action thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. Produced by Boal, Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, and independently financed by Ellison's Annapurna Pictures, the film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden, leader of the terrorist network al-Qaeda, after the September 11 attacks, which culminates in the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the U.S. military raid where bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011. It stars Jessica Chastain as Maya, a fictional CIA intelligence analyst, with Jason Clarke and Joel Edgerton appearing in supporting roles."UPI takes territories on Kathryn Bigelow's 'Zero Dark Thirty'" ; Screen Daily; May 15, 2012.
Widely released on January 11, 2013, by Columbia Pictures through Sony Pictures Releasing, following its premiere in Los Angeles on December 10, 2012, Zero Dark Thirty received critical acclaim for its acting, direction, screenplay, sound design, and editing, and was a box office success, grossing $132 million worldwide. It appeared on 95 critics' top ten lists of 2012 and received 5 nominations at the 85th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress for Chastain, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound Editing, which it won in a tie with Skyfall (which Sony also distributed); it also earned four Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) for Chastain, who won. Conversely, the film was accused of being pro-torture by U.S. senators John McCain, Dianne Feinstein, and Carl Levin.
Plot Maya is a CIA analyst tasked with finding the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In 2003, she is stationed at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. She and CIA officer Dan Fuller take part in the black site interrogations of Ammar, a detainee who is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with suspected links to several of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks. After use of approved enhanced interrogation techniques, Ammar provides unreliable information on a suspected attack in Saudi Arabia, but reveals the name of the personal courier for bin Laden, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Other detainee intelligence connects Abu Ahmed to courier traffic between Abu Faraj al-Libbi and bin Laden. In 2005 at a CIA black site, Maya attempts to interrogate Faraj. He denies knowing about a courier named Abu Ahmed; Maya interprets this as an attempt by Faraj to conceal Abu Ahmed's importance.
After interrogating Faraj, Dan tells Maya he is leaving to go back to Washington. He warns her to be careful once she returns back to Pakistan because everyone knows her there now. Once she returns, Maya goes to the Marriott hotel in Islamabad to meet fellow CIA officers for a drink when a bomb goes off.
In 2009, a Jordanian doctor highly placed in al-Qaeda has offered to become a US spy for $25 million. Maya's fellow officer and friend Jessica travels to a US base in Afghanistan to meet him, but he turns out to be a triple agent loyal to al-Qaeda. Jessica is killed, along with several other CIA officers, when he detonates a suicide vest. In response, Maya redoubles her efforts to find Abu Ahmed and bin Laden.
Thomas shares information from a Jordanian detainee claiming to have buried Ahmed in 2001. Another colleague discovers that Ahmed is likely a man named Ibrahim Sayeed, from information provided by Morocco after 9/11, and tells Maya. Believing that the man reported dead was Ahmed's brother, Maya contacts Dan, now a senior officer at the CIA headquarters for information on Sayeed's family. Dan obtains the phone number of Sayeed's mother from a Kuwaiti prince in exchange for a Lamborghini Gallardo Bicolor. Maya and her CIA team in Pakistan obtain Sayeed's number from calls with his mother and eventually, despite his use of tradecraft, identify him and his vehicle. They track his vehicle to a large urban compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Following a gunman attack on Maya, she is recalled to Washington, D.C. for a possible loss of her security cover.
The CIA places the traced compound under surveillance but is unable to confirm that bin Laden is in residence. Despite this, the President's National Security Advisor tasks the CIA with a plan to attack the place. Before briefing President Barack Obama, the CIA director holds a meeting of his senior officers, who estimate that bin Laden is 60–80% likely to be in the compound. Maya places her confidence at 100%, so the mission is eventually approved.
On May 2, 2011, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment flies two stealth helicopters from Afghanistan into Pakistan with members of DEVGRU (SEAL Team Six) and the CIA's Special Activities Division to raid the compound. The Seals gain entry and kill several people in the compound, including a man whom they believe is bin Laden. Back at the U.S. base in Jalalabad Afghanistan, Maya confirms the corpse identity. Soon afterwards, she boards, as a single passenger on an empty military cargo plane back home and begins to cry.
Cast CIA
Jessica Chastain as Maya, a CIA intelligence analyst (a composite character modeled in part after Alfreda Frances Bikowsky) Jason Clarke as Dan Fuller, a CIA intelligence officer Jennifer Ehle as Jessica Karley, a senior CIA analyst (based on Jennifer Matthews) Mark Strong as George, a senior CIA supervisor Kyle Chandler as Joseph Bradley, Islamabad CIA Station Chief (based on Jonathan Banks) James Gandolfini as CIA Director Harold Perrineau as Jack Fuller, a CIA analyst Mark Duplass as Steve Bradley, a CIA analyst Fredric Lehne as Fred "The Wolf" Guerrero, a CIA section chief (based on Michael D'Andrea) John Barrowman as Jeremy Karley, a CIA executive Jessie Collins as Debbie Stone, a CIA analyst Édgar Ramírez as Larry Handley, a CIA SAD/SOG operative Fares Fares as Hakim, a CIA SAD/SOG operative Scott Adkins as John Simmons, a CIA SAD/SOG operative Jeremy Strong as Thomas, a CIA analyst
US Navy
Joel Edgerton as Patrick Grayston, DEVGRU (SEAL Team 6) team leader Chris Pratt as Justin Lenihan, DEVGRU operator. Callan Mulvey as Saber Till, DEVGRU operator. Phil Somerville as Phil, DEVGRU operator Taylor Kinney as Jared Bradley, DEVGRU operator Mike Colter as Mike, DEVGRU operator Frank Grillo as DEVGRU Commanding officer Christopher Stanley as JSOC Commander Vice Admiral Bill McRaven
Other
Stephen Dillane as National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon Mark Valley as C-130 pilot John Schwab as Deputy National Security Advisor Reda Kateb as Ammar, a terrorist who is tortured for information Homayoun Ershadi as Hassan Ghul Yoav Levi as Abu Farraj al-Libbi Ricky Sekhon as Osama bin Laden, leader and founder of al-Qaeda Ali Marhyar as interrogator on monitor
Production
Titles The film's working title was For God and Country.No conspiracy: New documents explain Pentagon, CIA cooperation on 'Zero Dark Thirty' ; Entertainment Weekly; August 28, 2012. The title Zero Dark Thirty was officially confirmed at the end of the film's teaser trailer.Bin Laden movie trailer is out; filmmakers are talking ; azcentral.com; August 6, 2012. Bigelow has explained that "it's a military term for early morning before dawn, and it refers also to the darkness and secrecy that cloaked the entire decade-long mission."
Writing Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal had initially worked on and finished a screenplay centered on the December 2001 Battle of Tora Bora, and the long, unsuccessful efforts to find Osama bin Laden in the region. The two were about to begin filming when news broke that bin Laden had been killed.
They immediately shelved the film they had been working on and redirected their focus, essentially starting from scratch. "But a lot of the homework I'd done for the first script and a lot of the contacts I made, carried over," Boal remarked during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He added, "The years I had spent talking to military and intelligence operators involved in counter-terrorism was helpful in both projects. Some of the sourcing I had developed long, long ago continued to be helpful for this version."
Along with painstakingly recreating the historic night-vision raid on the Abbottabad compound, the script and the film stress the little-reported role of the tenacious young female CIA officer who tracked down Osama bin Laden. Screenwriter Boal said that while researching for the film, "I heard through the grapevine that women played a big role in the CIA in general and in this team. I heard that a woman was there on the night of the raid as one of the CIA's liaison officers on the ground – and that was the start of it." He then turned up stories about a young case officer who was recruited out of college, who had spent her entire career chasing bin Laden. Maya's tough-minded, monomaniacal persona, Boal said, is "based on a real person, but she also represents the work of a lot of other women." In December 2014 Jane Mayer of The New Yorker wrote that "Maya" was modeled in part after CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky.
Filming Zero Dark Thirty producers built a real compound in Jordan, based on what they could learn (from diagrams and reporting) about the building where the CIA's pursuit ended. The production designer—Jeremy Hindle, who had never made a feature film before—was responsible for making the building as real as possible. The cinder blocks with which the building was made, for example, were distressed so that they didn't look new. Parts of the film were shot at PEC University of Technology in Chandigarh, India. Some parts of Chandigarh were designed to look like Lahore and Abbottabad in Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was found and killed on May 2, 2011. Parts of the film were shot in Mani Majra. Local members of right-wing parties protested, expressing anti-bin Laden and anti-Pakistan sentiments as they objected to Pakistani locations being portrayed on Indian soil. For a lone scene shot in Poland, the city of Gdańsk was reportedly offended for depicting it as a location for the CIA's clandestine and dark operations.
National security expert Peter Bergen, who reviewed an early cut of the film as an unpaid adviser, said at the time that the film's torture scenes "were overwrought". Boal said they were "toned down" in the final cut.
Music
Alexandre Desplat composed and conducted the film's score. The score, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, was released as a soundtrack album by Madison Gate Records on December 19, 2012.
Release Distribution Columbia Pictures distributed the film in the United States with Annapurna Pictures' international sales arm Panorama Media handling international rights through an independent distributors, Universal Pictures International co-distributed the film with Panorama in select European territories and South Africa. Icon Film Distribution distributed the film in Australia and Entertainment One distributed the film in Canada.
Marketing Electronic Arts promoted Zero Dark Thirty in its video game Medal of Honor: Warfighter by offering downloadable maps of locations depicted in the film. Additional maps for the game were made available on December 19, to coincide with the film's initial release. Electronic Arts donated $1 to nonprofit organizations that support veterans for each Zero Dark Thirty map pack sold.'Zero Dark Thirty' to be promoted in 'Medal of Honor' video game ; Los Angeles Times; September 10, 2012.
Theatrical The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 10, 2012. It had a limited theatrical release on December 19, 2012, before expanding wide on January 11, 2013.
Home media Zero Dark Thirty was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on March 26, 2013, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Reception Box office The limited release of Zero Dark Thirty grossed $417,150 in the United States and Canada in only five theaters. A wide release followed on January 11.