LOS ANGELES (AP) — A film dramatizing the death of Osama bin Laden is set to debut next month on the National Geographic Channel, two days before the presidential election.
"Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden," from The Weinstein Co.
and Voltage Pictures, will air Sunday, Nov. 4, the channel said
Thursday. President Barack Obama faces Republican challenger Mitt Romney
at the polls two days later.Weinstein co-chairman Harvey Weinstein is a prominent fundraiser for Obama's re-election campaign, which has touted bin Laden's death as an example of the president's leadership.
[Watch: Exclusive 'Seal Team Six' trailer]
National Geographic Channel chose the film's debut date to help
promote the start of its fall season, channel President Howard T. Owens
said Thursday."Harvey obviously doesn't schedule our network," Owens said. He added that the channel is "not political. We are opportunistic from a programming perspective."
National Geographic Channel did take into account Weinstein's desire to get out ahead of a competitive movie about the U.S. Navy SEALs' hunt for the al-Qaida leader, Owens said.
"Zero Dark Thirty," from director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who won Oscars for "The Hurt Locker," is scheduled to be released in theaters at the end of the year.
"Seal Team Six," directed by John Stockwell ("Into the Blue"),
also was intended for a big-screen release until the channel made what
it called a "preemptive bid" for it. The film will be available to
Netflix U.S. subscribers a day after its premiere.
Owens said he and Weinstein have a
previous business relationship: Owens represented Miramax Television
while working at the William Morris Agency.
"Seal Team Six," whose cast
includes Cam Gigandet, Anson Mount, Freddy Rodriquez and Xzibit, is the
channel's first original film drawn from real events and is part of a
programming expansion that includes the recently announced "Killing
Lincoln," based on Bill O'Reilly's best-selling book.
The depiction of the bin Laden
raid in Pakistan was vetted by experts that included a recently retired
Navy SEAL and a bin Laden historian, the channel said.
"While some aspects of the
characterizations have been dramatized for creative reasons, the core
story is an accurate portrayal of an event that ended the longest
manhunt in American history," according to a news release from the
channel.
