Despite reportedly rebuffing requests from filmmakers and star Benedict Cumberbatch during the making of The Fifth Estate, Julian Assange’s website has now released a “mature” script from the film accompanied by a lengthy post that refutes point-by-point everything from the film’s depiction of WikiLeaks, down to the idea that Assange’s white-blonde locks might not be natural. It even calls into question the claim that The Fifth Estate is the first WikiLeaks movie: “Underground: The Julian Assange Story, directed by Robert Connolly, and starring Rachel Griffith and Anthony LaPaglia premiered at Toronto Film Festival 2012, twelve months before The Fifth Estate,” says the memo.
The whistleblower website calls the movie “irresponsible, counterproductive and harmful,” and the Associated Press reports it probably leaked the not-final script ahead of the Oct. 18 release to harm ticket sales. “Most of the events depicted never happened, or the people shown were not involved in them,” says the post. WikiLeaks notes the film “has real names, real places, and looks like it is covering real events, but it is still a dramatic and cinematic work, and it invents or shapes the facts to fit its narrative goals,” though it’s entirely possible Dreamworks itself included such a disclaimer. You can read the rest of the manifesto, along with the script, right here.
