LOS ANGELES — At the end of Alex Gibney’s not-quite-finished documentary “We Steal Secrets” — about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks — is a screen crawl describing the fate of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who now faces trial for the release of confidential military and diplomatic documents.

“He was found guilty of TK, and sentenced to TK years” in prison, the line says.

“TK” is journalistic shorthand for facts yet to come. The syntax suggests that Mr. Gibney doesn’t see much ahead.

But it is Private Manning, even more than Mr. Assange, who has the breakout role in this first of several Hollywood films about the little-known people who grew larger than the most powerful of governments by using the Internet to broadcast their secrets.

Set for debut at the Sundance Film Festival next month, “We Steal Secrets” is a collaboration between the producer Marc Shmuger, who until 2009 was a chairman of Universal Pictures, and Mr. Gibney, a prolific documentarian who won an Oscar for “Taxi to the Dark Side.”