Bowe Bergdahl movie in pipeline with Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal on board

The US Sgt was released from the Taliban last month amid a political storm

Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal with their Oscars for 2008's The Hurt Locker (Getty Images)

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is planning a film based on the real-life experience of US Sgt Bowe Bergdahl.

The Zero Dark Thirty filmmaker is working with writer and producer Mark Boal on a movie about the army private who was captured by the Taliban and held hostage for five years after leaving his base in Afghanistan.

Bigelow and Boal worked together on 2008 triumph The Hurt Locker and renowned for their ability to adapt scripts to coincide with actal events.

The pair had prepared a script about the futile mission to find Osama bin Laden but scrapped it to alter facts when Barack Obama announced that the Al-Queda leader had been killed.

Bergdahl’s story seems a perfect fit for Bigelow, as it remains a hot topic in the press. He has been branded a deserter by some miltary men for abandoning his troops in 2009 after becoming disillusioned with what he saw as their incompetence.

Sgt Bowe Bergdahl before his capture by the Taliban in Afghanistan (AFP)

Similarly controversial are the circumstances of the 28-year-old’s release last month. He was given his freedom in exchange for five Taliban operatives being held in Guantanamo Bay, after the White House conducted a secret negotiation.

An investigation into Bergdahl’s disapperance and capture has been launched by the US army.

Fox Searchlight is reported to be working on a rival film based on late Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hasting’s “America’s Last Prisoner of War” article. Todd Field is attached to direct.