Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
- The original script for Zero Dark Thirty was written over a decade before production finally began in 2012.
- The incredible score for Zero Dark Thirty was composed in just a few weeks after the original composer dropped out.
- Many of the practical effects used in the climax were achieved without any CGI.
Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American political thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow, depicting the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a CIA intelligence analyst whose single-minded, obsessive pursuit of the al-Qaeda leader drives the investigation from its earliest interrogation-based intelligence gathering through years of dead ends, bureaucratic resistance, and deadly attacks on CIA personnel to the final Navy SEAL assault on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The film generated enormous controversy over its depiction of enhanced interrogation techniques β opponents argued the film implied torture produced actionable intelligence, while the filmmakers maintained they were documenting what happened without endorsing it.
Jessica Chastain's Maya was a mesmerizing presence β a woman who has sacrificed her entire personal life for a single purpose and whose hollow, exhausted expression in the final shot asked whether the cost was worth it. Zero Dark Thirty earned $132 million worldwide on a $40 million budget.
