Sean Penn could join Christian Bale in The Last Photograph

Sean Penn is keen to join The Last Photograph , according to a report by Deadline.

Christian Bale is already attached to the film, which is based on an original idea by Zack Snyder (who's no longer directing).

Instead The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev will be calling the shots, from a script by Kurt Johnstad.

The Afghanistan-set drama will see Bale playing a war correspondent who survives an attack on a group of Americans, with Penn potentially playing an ex-special ops soldier who believes Bale can help him find a kidnapped family member.

Apparently Warner Bros aren't keen to finance the flick (Afghanistan does tend to be box office poison) so it could go to Joel Silver's Dark Castle for funding, with WB taking distribution duties.

The report also suggests that Penn turned down roles in Warner Bros' Gangster Squad and Superman: Man of Steel , before showing interest in this one.

The plan is to shoot The Last Photograph in 2012, after Bale has completed work on The Dark Knight Rises .

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.