Rachel Weisz To Play Real Life Mercenary In ‘Snatchback’

Rachel Weisz has played a huge array of different characters over the course of her very successful career, but her new role might be unlike any other she’s taken on. Rachel Weisz is set to star in Snatchback as real life kid-saving mercenary, Maureen Dabbaugh. Not only will the actress star in the film, but she’s also set to be one of the main producers of the film that will be directed by Dredd head man Peter Travis.

The Hollywood Reporter claims that Rachel Weisz is using the Cannes Film Festival as a way to sell her new project, and it appears there are at least a couple of studios interested in the piece. Rachel Weisz will need to find some serious inner strength in order to play Dabbaugh who had to deal with her husband stealing their 2-year-old child and escaping to the Middle East. Dabbaugh spent more than a decade looking for the child and attempting to bring her back to the United States.

Rachel Weisz’s character found there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do in order to get a lead on the whereabouts of her daughter and eventually became a mercenary who did a number of dangerous jobs in the Middle East region. “As told by Pete Travis in his riveting script, Mo’s story is powerful and exciting, but at its heart are deep maternal emotions that anyone in the world can relate to,” said Protagonist Pictures CEO Mike Goodridge in a statement. “It’s a powerhouse role and only an actress as gifted as Rachel [Weisz] could play it.”

While the woman Rachel Weisz will portray was at one time a kind of mercenary, she now works as a Certified Virginia Supreme Court Juvenile and Domestic Relations Mediator. Maureen Dabbaugh has worked on more than 1,200 child abduction cases over the course of her career. It’s unclear whether or not this Rachel Weisz film will be a kind of “life and times” of Maureen Dabbaugh or whether it will only center on this particular kidnapping case and show how she worked to get her child back. Whichever is the case, sounds like it could be rather moving storylines.

While this movie is just starting to get rolling, those who want to see the actress in lighter fare can take in The Lobster. Starring Rachel Weisz and Colin Farrell, the film is set in the not distant future where people have 45 days to find a mate or get transformed into animals and released into the wild.

[Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images]