While the acquisitions landscape is showing signs of that pre-Cannes dullness, a big deal is in the works for Megan Ellison and her Annapurna Pictures to fully fund American Bullshit, the drama that has David O Russell attached to direct, with Christian Bale also attached and Bradley Cooper in talks. The Eric Singer-scripted drama–which not surprisingly will get a different title–is about the 70s FBI sting operation Abscam that took down a bunch of U.S. congressmen. It is being produced by Charles Roven and Richard Suckle through Atlas Entertainment. Sony Pictures is the likely distributor; Atlas developed the film there. The studio was always looking for a partner, but Ellison evidently has decided to take all the risk and fund a budget I’m told is in the mid-$30 million to $40 million range. The hope is to close a deal and start production in January, but deals have to be made with talent and Russell has several possible next projects, including the Warner Bros Colombian hostage rescue pic The Mission that has the eye of Brad Pitt.

You might remember Deadline wrote about the project after Russell’s camp initially denied he was involved (I stupidly held it), and then his name started surfacing in trade reports and I tried to decipher who was bullshitting whom. Deadline revealed then that the potential star was Bale, who won an Oscar in the Russell-directed The Fighter. Russell later confirmed to me that he was in discussions to reunite with the actor, but that this was only one of several projects he was considering. Now I’m hearing that Cooper is also part of the package that is being sewn up by CAA. This is starting to look real.

The deal isn’t done yet but it will bring It brings another topical pricey project to Annapurna, and maybe a Cannes warmup for Ellison. Last May, she seemed to be in the center of all the big deals. That included the Kathryn Bigelow-directed Mark Boal-scripted drama about the Navy SEAL Team 6′s long and ultimately successful hunt for 9/11 mastermind and Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, which Ellison placed at Sony Pictures; a massive deal in the $20 million range for the rights to turn The Terminator into two features that would complete the James Cameron-created franchise; a distribution deal with The Weinstein Company for the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed drama on a man who creates a religion in the 1950s and soon is treated as a deity when it takes off; and another Harvey Weinstein deal to distribute the John Hillcoat-directed The Wettest County in the World, which is now called Lawless.

沪江娱乐快讯：在完成了《黑暗骑士崛起》之后，“蝙蝠侠”克里斯蒂安·贝尔将与《斗士》导演大卫·O·拉塞尔再次联手，出演根据真实事件改编的犯罪剧情片《美国骗局》（American Bullshit）。与拉塞尔刚刚合作了《乌云背后的幸福线》的布莱德利·库珀也在洽谈加盟。

《美国骗局》由《跨国银行》编剧艾瑞克·希格编写，故事根据80年代的一出政治丑闻改编。FBI在上世纪70、80年代期间，雇佣特工假扮成阿拉伯富翁贿赂了多名议员。当时共选择了31名官员作为目标，结果一个美国参议员、五名众议员、一名新泽西州参议员、一名移民局官员和其他一些政府官员被指控有腐败行为。这一事件后来被称作“螫刺行动”或称盯梢行动（即著名的美国钓鱼执法案，代号“ABSCAM”）。

《美国骗局》的剧本曾经入围2010年的“好莱坞剧本黑名单”（被买下但因各种原未拍成电影的优秀剧本）。此前，本·阿弗莱克也曾对这个剧本产生兴趣，不过最终大卫·O·拉塞尔成为了更适合的导演人选。据悉，影片的预算大概在3000万-4000万美元的水平。

截至目前，正式的合约尚未签订，不过这个主创阵容成型的可能性非常大。影片计划在明年1月正式开拍。