Bradley Cooper & Todd Phillips to produce WB’s WWII true tale Ghost Army

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Bradley Cooper and director Todd Phillips have another project lined up as producers, and the ADAM JONES actor may also star in the planned film as well. Last week we learned that they will be bringing the Dan Simmons novel Hyperion to the small screen for Syfy through their 22nd and Green banner, and Deadline is reporting the duo are also teaming up with AMERICAN SNIPER producer Andrew Lazar and Warner Bros. for GHOST ARMY, an adaptation of the Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles nonfiction book The Ghost Army Of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived The Enemy With Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, And Other Audacious Fakery.

Henry Gayden (EARTH TO ECHO) is writing the script, which will be based on Beyer and Sayles' novel, however Gayden will also be using material from THE GHOST ARMY, the 2013 Beyer-directed documentary. GHOST ARMY sounds a bit like George Clooney's THE MONUMENTS MEN, but with a dash of Ben Affleck's ARGO.

Here's the book description from Amazon:

In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey—landed in France to conduct a secret mission. Armed with truckloads of inflatable tanks, a massive collection of sound-effects records, and more than a few tricks up their sleeves, their job was to create a traveling road show of deception on the battlefields of Europe, with the German Army as their audience.

From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the Ghost Army, conjured up phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. Between missions the artists filled their duffel bags with drawings and paintings and dragged them across Europe. Every move they made was top secret and their story was hushed up for decades after the war's end. The Ghost Army of World War II is the first publication to tell the full story of how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives.

I'm aware of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops' role in World War II, but that's about it when it comes my knowledge of the Ghost Army. Are you interested in checking out GHOST ARMY, and which director do you think would be a good fit for the project?

Bradley Cooper's ADAM JONES is set to be released on October 2, 2015.