In the opening credits of THE KINGDOM, director Peter Berg gives us a quick four minute outline of the last century and how the war on terror and the search for oil has led us to where we are today. It’s an effective sequence and it doesn’t necessarily put America in the best light you would expect, he just tells it like it is – with a withdrawn sense of honesty.

Variety say Peter Berg will direct a drama about the real life kidnapping of oil heir John Paul Getty III in 1973, as illustrated in the book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty.

Getty was 16 at the time of the kidnapping and was the grandson of a billionaire of whom a $17 million ransom was demanded. The captor’s sent an ear of Getty to the billionaire when they didn’t reply fast enough to his ransom note, promising more would follow. No point telling you anymore, otherwise I would spoil the end!

I really enjoyed THE KINGDOM which for my money is one of the best middle-east movies of recent time to actually make me feel like I’m in the middle east, and have the sweat of the heat on my forehead and the fear of being shot at every corner.

This material sounds like much of the same but it will be competing with a remake of the Hong Kong thriller CHEUNG FO (which he has been attached to for some time), LONE SOLDIER (read about that here) and GONE LIKE THE WIND (read about that here) as his next project.

The next film of his that we will see is HANCOCK, the superhero in crisis movie with Will Smith and Charlize Theron, due out next summer.