Movie about Marla’s life.
‘Spider-Man’ star Dunst plays slain aid worker in
Iraq war movie
Agence France Presse, October 17, 2005
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051017/ts_alt_afp/afpentertainmentusiraq_051017220707
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - “Spider-Man” star Kirsten
Dunst is to play real-life US aid worker Marla
Ruzicka, who was killed in a suicide-bomb attack
in Baghdad in April, in a new Hollywood movie
about the war in Iraq.
The movie, to be made for Paramount Pictures,
will tell the remarkable story of Ruzicka, 28,
who ran a non-governmental organisation that
lobbied for financial compensation for civilian
casualties of war, Daily Variety said.
The studio last year sealed a deal to acquire the
rights to the life story of Ruzicka as well as to
a book being written by Jennifer Abrahamson, who
had planned to work on the book with the late aid
worker.
Ruzicka, through her organisation Campaign for
Innocent Victims in Conflict, worked extensively
in Iraq and in Afghanistan to document the exact
number of civilians killed or injured by US
forces.
She helped victims receive 10 million dollars in
compensation from the US government. But she was
killed when a suicide bomber targeted her car as
she drove to Baghdad airport six months ago.
Marc Platt will produce the movie along with MTV
Films.
Dunst, 23, has just finished filming the title
role in Oscar-nominated director Sofia Coppola’s
new movie “Marie Antoinette” and is set to
reprise her role as Peter Parker’s love interest
in “Spider-Man 3.”
Dunst took the role of the girlfriend of
“Spider-Man,” played by Tobey Maguire, in the
first two blockbuster movies in the series, which
was launched in 2002.
The movie comes as a reluctance by Hollywood to
depict the nearly three-year-old war in Iraq
dissolves, with a string of movies and television
dramas coming to the screen.
Big-screen movies in the works include the drama
“No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah,” set to
star Harrison Ford, and “Jarhead,” starring Jamie
Foxx and Jake Gyllenhaal, which is set to open on
November 11.
