Oliver Stone is to write and direct a film about Edward Snowden, one of two high-profile movies in the works about the National Security Agency whistleblower.

Stone said he planned to adapt The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man, a book by Guardian journalist Luke Harding.

“This is one of the greatest stories of our time,” Stone said, adding that making such a film was “a real challenge”.

But he will have some deep-pocketed competition. Last month Sony Pictures purchased the big-screen rights to Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the US Surveillance State.

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