 [MAIL] While major Hollywood studios consider boycotting Georgia over a controversial new abortion law, Clint Eastwood will produce and direct a movie in the Peach State about the bombing of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
The 89-year-old Dirty Harry legend is in line to oversee production of The Ballad of Richard Jewell.
The filming of the movie is scheduled to begin sometime this summer, according to WXIA-TV.
Jewell worked as a security guard at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park at the time of the July 27 bombing, which killed one person, injured more than 100 and marred the 1996 Olympics.
Jewell was at first praised because he discovered a suspicious knapsack that contained the pipe bomb and helped evacuate people from the park. But he was later named as a chief suspect by the FBI on grounds that he may have acted as a lone bomber.
Jewell, who sued some media outlets for defamation after he was cleared, worked as a law enforcement officer after the episode.
Eric Robert Rudolph pleaded guilty to the bombing in 2005 and is serving life in prison for it and other attacks.
Jewell, who had diabetes and kidney ailments, died in August 2007. He was 44 years old.
The actors who are scheduled to star in the movie include Kathy Bates, Olivia Wilde, Jon Hamm, and Sam Rockwell.
Unlike some of his colleagues in the industry, Eastwood does not appear to be signing on to a Hollywood boycott of Georgia.
Eastwood, a registered Republican who considers himself libertarian, has not been shy about making his political views known. In 2012, he endorsed Mitt Romney in his failed bid to defeat the incumbent, then-President Barack Obama.
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