"You open a newspaper and see a picture taken in a war somewhere, and there's a gun in somebody's hand," says Andrew Niccol, writer and director of "Lord of War," a revealing new drama about weapons trafficking. "That gun had to come from somewhere. I was interested in where it came from."

The 41-year-old, New Zealand-born Niccol is best known for his Oscar-nominated, original screenplay for "The Truman Show" and critically lauded 1997 directorial debut, "Gattaca." Following his 2002 ingenious satire on celebrity madness in a digital age, "Simone," Niccol chose for his latest subject the little-known world of black-market arms dealing. "Lord of War" opens Friday.

"We hear so much about weapons of mass destruction," Niccol says during a recent interview at the Fairmont Oympic Hotel in Seattle. "But nine out of 10 war victims are killed by guns. It's the AK-47 that's a weapon of mass destruction."

Niccol says he began collecting information about illicit arms dealers through secondhand channels. But he also got to know several notorious gunrunners fairly well, eventually folding their anecdotes and experiences into "Lord of War" 's central character, Yuri (Nicolas Cage).

An ambitious immigrant who emerges from New York City's Little Odessa neighborhood to sell weapons to warlords everywhere, Yuri becomes fabulously wealthy and remains a step ahead of a determined agent (Ethan Hawke) from Interpol.

Despite what one might expect of black marketers in the weapons trade, Niccol says his sources were happy to help him out.

"There's a vanity," Niccol says. "Almost like Mafia guys who love 'The Godfather' and don't see it as an indictment against them. Some arms dealers will see this film and think it glorifies them. They'll just be questioning how authentic it is."

Niccol also had no trouble persuading dealers to loan him some extraordinary props. One of the film's most startling scenes finds Yuri bargaining over row upon row of Russian T-72 tanks. The visual effect is so startling one has to assume the tanks are a computer-generated image.

"I can't convince anyone it isn't CGI," laughs Niccol. "Actually, I went to the Czech Republic and found a guy who owns, privately, 100 Russian T-72 tanks. It was no problem to lend them to me, but he needed them back to sell to Libya. I also had to inform NATO we were filming there. Someone in the Pentagon could have been looking at satellite images and noticed an arms buildup."

Niccol doubts "Lord of War" could have been made without Cage's unique contribution.

"I needed the devil to be charming," Niccol says, "and there's no more charming a devil than Nic. Something about him makes an arms dealer likable. He was drawn to the material and took a big pay cut to do it."

The soft-spoken Niccol learned his trade in a familiar setting.

"My film school was commercials in London" he says. "That's where Ridley Scott and Alan Parker come from. There's real training because there's such an obligation to entertain."

Niccol wanted "The Truman Show," which he originally set in a faux New York, to be his first feature as a director. Paramount Pictures opted for the more experienced Peter Weir, and changes ensued.

"You have two choices when someone changes your work," says Niccol. "You can either wash your hands of it or embrace it. I embraced it. Peter and I are good friends."

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com