kathryn bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow Is Teaming Up With Somali Rapper K’naan to Develop a Jihadi Recruitment Drama for HBO

Director Kathryn Bigelow arrives at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 13, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California.
Photo: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Kathryn Bigelow has found her next project, and yes, it’s about America’s complicated relationship with terrorism. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the director has signed on to develop The Recruiters, a drama which, according to HBO, “will draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment.” Set in Minnesota, the project is written, produced, and directed by Somali-Canadian musician and poet K’naan Warsame (“Wavin’ Flag“), who has begun posting casting notices in search of a Somali lead for the show on his Facebook page. Bigelow’s level of involvement could change once, and if, The Recruiters gets to the pilot stage, but she will surely bring the same depth of research seen in Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker to the project. She also has valuable experience with HBO’s development process — in 2010, Bigelow directed The Miraculous Year, an hour-long drama pilot about a Broadway family for the network, though the pilot was eventually rejected.

Kathryn Bigelow Developing Terror Pilot for HBO