Sean Penn Eyeing 'The Last Photograph' With Christian Bale, Niels Arden Oplev To Direct

Penn Turned Down Roles In Both 'Tales From The Gangster Squad' & 'Man Of Steel'

Sean Penn is being courted for a role in the movie that is curiously looking to get set up over at Warner Bros. genre shingle Dark Castle. Based on an idea by Zack Snyder (no joke) and written by Kurt Johnstad ("300") "The Last Photograph" has been in development for a while and "revolves around a photograph that becomes the catalyst for a journey two men undertake through war-torn Afghanistan." Sergey Bodrov ("Mongol") was originally attached to direct back in March 2009, but now Niels Arden Oplev ("The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo") is on board to direct the film. Bale would play a journalist and the sole witness and survivor of an attack on a group of Americans in Afghanistan, while Penn is being eyed for the part of an ex-special ops dude who teams with the journalist to help find the people who kidnapped one of this family members in exchange for the story.

Sounds like a great premise -- it's described as a drama somewhere between "The Searchers" and uh, "Taken" -- but the move to Dark Castle throws us a bit. They tend to deal strictly with stuff like "The Losers" and "Ninja Assassin" and we'd guess this one is more "Taken" than "The Searchers."

All this being said, Penn is not a certainty. He's very selective with film roles -- he recently turned down an offer for "Tales From The Gangster Squad" and apparently even "Man Of Steel" -- so it'll be interesting to see if this is a project that floats his boat. And at any rate, it probably can't lens until sometime late this year at the earliest since Bale will be preoccupied playing Bruce Wayne in "The Dark Knight Rises" for the next little while. [Deadline]