LOS ANGELES:

Documentarian Alex Gibney is attached to direct 1970s political thriller “The Action” for Lionsgate.

The story, set in 1971, follows eight anti-war activists who stole classified FBI documents from an office near Philadelphia and exposed J. Edgar Hoover’s Cointelpro campaign of spying and blackmail against Vietnam War protesters. Details of documents were leaked to Washington Post reporter Betty Medsger, who disclose the FBI campaign wrote the 2014 “The Burglary: The Discovery Of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI.”

The FBI was never able to apprehend the eight, who called themselves the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI. The identities of the eight activists were unveiled in 2014.