Warner Bros. to develop Howard Blum spy thriller Dark Invasion as film with Bradley Cooper

Warner Bros. has acquired Howard Blum’s upcoming book Dark Invasion and will develop it for Oscar-nominated actor Bradley Cooper, Deadline reports. The nonfiction thriller will be published by Crown on September 11, 2013, a significant date because of its content. Dark Invasion centers on what were considered the first attacks on U.S. soil since its formative years.

Dark Invasion is a 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 spies bomb factories, sabotage ships, shoot financier Allie JP Morgan Jr., bomb the U.S. Capitol Building, and set up an anthrax lab six miles from the White House. Cooper is set to play NYPD Capt Tom Tunney, who established the team that attempts to bring the German spies to justice. According to the book, CIA considers Tunney to be its first head of homeland security.

Blum’s last book, The Floor Of Heaven, is setup at Fox 2000, with a script by Scott Silver. ‘Heaven’ is about the West and the Yukon Gold Rush.