There are at least three films in the works about the life of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but only one has already entered production with Hollywood's current hottest Brit Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead.

The Fifth Estate, from a script by The West Wing's Josh Singer and with Dreamgirls/Twilight director Bill Condon on board, has begun principal photography this week at an undisclosed location. Cumberbatch stars as Assange, and the first picture of the Sherlock star with dyed white-blond hair (alongside Goodbye, Lenin!'s Daniel Brühl as the activist's confidant Daniel Domscheit-Berg) has been released to coincide.

If you're wondering why the screen version of the WikiLeaks founder seems a bit more hirsute than the current model, that's because The Fifth Estate focuses on the early days of the site. Based on Domscheit-Berg's own book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website, as well as Guardian writers David Leigh and Luke Harding's WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, it's being tipped as a celluloid document of Assange's meteoric rise into the public consciousness.

"It may be decades before we understand the full impact of WikiLeaks and how it's revolutionised the spread of information," Condon says in a statement released by DreamWorks. "So this film won't claim any long view authority on its subject, or attempt any final judgment. We want to explore the complexities and challenges of transparency in the information age and, we hope, enliven and enrich the conversations WikiLeaks has already provoked."

Due for release on 15 November in the US, The Fifth Estate is clearly being pushed as an awards contender for 2014. The stellar cast also includes Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis and In the Loop's Peter Capaldi. But never mind all of those - could this be Cumberbatch's first bash at Oscars recognition?