Bradley Cooper set to parlay his first Oscar nomination into the starring role of a period spy flick called Dark Invasion

After a steady stream of starring roles that culminated in his first Oscar nomination this past week, Bradley Cooper has already used his Oscar clout to line up what sounds like a fascinating project.

Just to clarify, “fascinating” here refers to both in general terms and in terms of stretching Cooper’s on screen presence in terms of tone and subject matter.

Titled DARK INVASION, the project is a planned adaptation of Howard Blum’s upcoming book set to release on September 11th, 2013.  The general plot/history recap goes something like this: “The book is a true spy thriller set in 1915 when Germany, with war raging in Europe and the U.S. still neutral, decides to send their Secret Service to America to wage a covert war to keep this country from helping the Allies. The Kaiser’s spies bomb factories, sabotage ships, shoot JP Morgan Jr (a financier of the Allies), bomb the U.S. Capitol Building, and set up an anthrax lab six miles from the White House. Cooper is attached to play NYPD Capt Tom Tunney, who’s tasked with establishing the team that will bring these German spies to justice. CIA considers Tunney to be its first head of homeland security, according to the book.”

There’s no word yet about any specific involvement on the production side – might Cooper try to bring David O. Russell in as writer/director? Maybe a past collaborator such as Joe Carnahan? There’s no word yet, but considering this already has all the makings of a Hollywood hit (with both critics and audiences alike), I imagine that we’ll see movement sooner rather than later on Cooper’s first fully-crafted-just-for-him starring vehicle.