When Bradley Cooper starred as U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle in American Sniper he became a Hollywood darling among conservatives, and when the film failed to win any Oscars in 2015, many viewed it as a case of liberal bias against the armed services. Then Cooper showed up at the Democratic National Convention last week and got attacked by Sniper fans for perpetrating some sort of betrayal of them and the memory of Kyle. Well, it looks like Cooper’s relationship with the United States armed services is going to get another layer, as he has been given the green light by HBO to develop a miniseries about the rise of ISIS called Black Flags. The series will be based on the book Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick, which won a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2016. The story will begin with ISIS’s nascent stages in a Jordanian prison and explore its rise to power in Syria, eventually becoming the most infamous terrorist organization in the world. Black Flags will also touch on the American and international task force saddled with the responsibility of dismantling it. Cooper is co-producing with Hangover director Todd Phillips, who is definitely the first person you think of when you’re building your global-terror-miniseries vision board.
