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New Hollywood Thriller Based on Daniel Pearl Story

The Daniel Pearl story will become the base of a new Hollywood production with the "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?" book, by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, is made into a movie. The book discuses the US reporter`s murder by Islamic militants, and the movie will be a kind of Hollywood thriller.

Beacon pictures has lined UP actor Josh Lucas to star in the movie as the Wall Street Journal journalist killed after being kidnapped in the Pakistani city of Karachi in January 2002 where he was investigating Islamic militancy. Filmmaker Kip Williams, who made "Door In The Floor," will direct the yet untitled movie, according to entertainment industry Bible ?Daily Variety? yesterday. Production on the film is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year and location scouts are already eyeing areas of India, Morocco, Dubai, Libya, and Tunisia for filming, the daily said.

In his book, levy described his own risky journey to Pakistan to investigate pearl`s disappearance and outlines his theory that pearl may have uncovered complicity between the Pakistani secret services and al-Qaeda. In addition, the philosopher is to be transformed in the movie into a US television reporter who eschews the trappings of media celebrity in a bid to find out what happened to Pearl, Variety said.