Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, Hungarian media reported Friday, May 13. The film will be called "Vengeance" in reference to the subsequent operation by Israeli intelligence agents to track down and kill several of the murder suspects, Hungarian News Agency MTI quoted Spielberg’s Spokesman Marvin Levy as saying.
"Vengeance" is also the name of a book about the bloodshed written by Hungarian-born Canadian author George Jonas in 1984, which formed the base of the script for the movie, Hungarian media said.
On September 5, 1972, eight gunmen from a Palestinian group calling themselves Black September burst into the apartment block of the athletes’ village housing the Israeli team, shot two men dead and took the rest hostage.
In the hostage-taking that ensued, 11 Israelis were killed in a failed attempt by German security services to free them. Shooting is scheduled to start in early July and will reportedly last for two to three months.
Spielberg’s announcement was also expected to come as a boost for the film industry in Hungary, where developers are attempting to build the world’s largest film studio complex in the Hungarian village of Etyek, about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) west of Budapest.
Hungary, which has the largest Jewish community in Central Europe outside Russia, has been praised by producers for its historic buildings in the Hungarian capital, where several other international films were made including ‘Evita’ starring pop artist Madonna.
(With BosNewsLife Research and Stefan J. Bos in Budapest)
