The Hunger Games Josh Hutcherson is set to star alongside Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsley in the political thriller BACKSTABBING FOR BEGINNERS. The film, written by Daniel Pyne and Per Fly, is being directed by Fly. Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy will producer through Parts & Labor, while Malene Blenkov and Nikolaj Vice Michelsen will produce for Creative Alliance with Daniel Bekerman of Scythia Films. Kingsley and Hutcherson will serve as executive producers as well.
Inspired by Michael Soussan’s critically acclaimed memoir, Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy, the film tells the story of Michael (Hutcherson), a young idealist who lands his dream job as a program coordinator for the U.N.’s Oil for Food program. He is thrown into an already fraught post-war Iraq where government agents and power-hungry countries are circling Iraq’s oil reserves like sharks. He seeks answers from the one person he thinks he can trust, Pasha (Kingsley), his boss, a seasoned diplomat. The more Michael learns, however, the more he suspects a conspiracy at the highest level. The only way out will be to expose it all–risking his own life, his mentor’s career, and the life of the Kurdish woman he loves.
Kingsley can currently be seen in Robert Zemeckis’s The Walk, and will the voice of Bagheera the panther in Disney’s forthcoming The Jungle Book.
Hutcherson will next be seen in the highly-anticipated finale to The Hunger Games franchise, Mockingjay Part 2 (you can watch the latest trailer here). He recently completed filming two projects with James Franco–The Long Home and In Dubious Battle.
Kingsley and Hutcherson are both repped by CAA.
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Josh Lyons | Staff Writer
