John Stockwell’s Seal Team Six: The Raid On Osama Bin Laden will make its world premiere on the National Geographic Channel on Sunday, November 4 two days before the Presidential election. Produced by Oscar winner Nicolas Chartier (The Hurt Locker) and distributed by The Weinstein Co, the film chronicles the operation that led to the killing of the al-Qaeda leader and represents NGC’s first broadcast of a feature inspired by real-life events. The movie will be available on Netflix the day after its debut on NatGeo. Meanwhile, Kathryn Bigelow’s feature about the hunt for bin Laden opens in theaters a month later, on Dec. 19.
The Weinstein Co. acquired Seal Team Six (then Code Name Geronimo) in May for $2 million in the first major deal at the Cannes Film Festival. NatGeo brass have been in discussions with Harvey Weinstein and his team for the past couple of months about bringing the film to the network. Seal Team Six underlines NatGeo’s new emphasis on narrative historical programming. The network is making a big entry into the arena with the upcoming Killing Lincoln, a two-hour historical thriller from Scott Free Prods., which is narrated by Tom Hanks.
Seal Team Six stars Cam Gigandet, Anson Mount, Freddy Rodriquez, Xzibit, Kathleen Robertson, Eddie Kay Thomas and Kenneth Miller, with Robert Knepper and William Fichtner. It was written by Kendall Lampkin. The events portrayed in the film were vetted by a team of experts including a recently retired Navy Seal, a top CIA operative and one of the most renowned bin Laden historians. Here’s the trailer: