Peter Berg will adapt and direct Universal’s Lone Survivor, the feature about a Navy Seal who led a team into Afghanistan on a mission to kill a Taliban leader but was the only one to survive.
Several producers were vying for Marcus Luttrell’s life story, published by Little, Brown in June after Luttrell exited the service. Attorney Alan U. Schwartz of Greenberg Traurig, who helped Luttrell find a publisher for his account, arranged for the former soldier to meet with potential writers and producers for the film version of his story.
Luttrell bonded with Berg, a fellow Texas native who had used Navy Seals in the making of upcoming Universal release The Kingdom, paving the way for Universal to buy the novel and underlying life rights for Berg’s Film 44, Akiva Goldsman’s Weed Road Productions and Barry Spikings’ Spikings Entertainment.
Goldsman, Spikings and Sarah Aubrey, Berg’s producing partner, are producers on the project. Berg and Kerry Foster of Weed Road are executive producing.
Lone Survivor is expected to be Berg’s next project.