Oliver Stone’s Snowden Drops New Trailer at Comic-Con

A new trailer for Snowden dropped during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. The movie, which is directed by three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone and was made in consultation with Edward Snowden himself, follows the story of the NSA whistleblower, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The actor wore an American flag t-shirt at the panel in a nod to Snowden’s patriotism.

The new trailer shows Snowden and his girlfriend (played by Shailene Woodley) discovering that his house is bugged. Later it shows him using a bugged Rubik’s Cube to gather information from the NSA. The trailer also shows shots of Snowden in the army as a young man and on the run as a fugitive.

Stone told the audience that he had a hard time getting the movie funded. “It was turned down by every major studio. The script was good, the budget was good, the cast was good,” the director said. “We call it self-censorship. I don’t think there was an enemy like the NSA lurking in the background. It was self-censorship.”

During the panel Gordon-Levitt said that Stone is one of the most patriotic filmmakers in American history. “If you love something and you see something wrong about it. You raise your hand and you talk about it and try to fix it. And that’s what I think his movies have done for decades, and I was really proud to be invited into one of his films,” he said.

He added that he was in support of Snowden’s actions. “The question is we’re promised privacy in the constitution and if the government is going to change those rules, they need to be open about that,” the actor said.