Bradley Cooper acquired the move rights to legendary Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle's bestselling memoir American Sniper shortly before Kyle was killed by a fellow veteran in February 2013. After a false start with Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood stepped in to direct the film and the first trailer just debuted online.
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In the trailer, Kyle/Cooper is providing cover for a convoy in Iraq. He monitors Iraqi civilians, trying to decide which ones are a threats to the soldiers he's there to protect. While there are a series of flashbacks to event's from Kyle's life, the trailer focuses on the decisions a sniper has to make: are the Iraqi citizens he's monitoring threats or innocent bystanders? The trailer ends suddenly as Kyle must decide whether to shoot a young boy with an RKG Russian grenade.
Kyle's book did a great job of conveying just how difficult those decisions are and it's no surprise that Clint Eastwood, whose career is full of films that focus on men making life-or-death choices with limited information, chose to introduce his movie with a scene like this one. American Sniper opens in theaters on Christmas Day.
![](http://images04.military.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail_large/public/2024-11/1time%20cher%20uss%20missouri%201200.jpg?itok=qi9yyMAM "Cher's more formal look in her 1989 music video, "If I Could Turn Back Time," filmed aboard the battleship USS Missouri. (Criteron Studios)")
