The UK’s Sunday Times is reporting that Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) has been “persuaded by Steven Spielberg” to play Abbie Hoffman, in the upcoming film The Trial of the Chicago Seven.
Written by Aaron Sorkin, and based on the true story of the seven defendants charged with conspiracy and inciting to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Hoffman was a self-identified Jewish Road Warrior and communo-anarchist. Hoffman became a symbol of youth rebellion and radical activism during the 1970’s. He later committed suicide in 1989. Cohen will reportedly get around $6 million for the film.
Last year at the Sundance Film Festival, I watched a documentary on the subject called Chicago 10. And while I don’t know a lot about Abbie, I’m pretty convinced from the limited archival footage I’ve seen, that Cohen is the perfect person for the role. Who knows when Spielberg will find time to shoot this project, as his plate is pretty full already with post on Indy 4, Tintin, Lincoln and Interstellar.
December 30th, 2007 at 4:44 am
HELLS YEAH! I’ll be all over this when it comes out.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:23 am
GREAT NEWS!
Shooting is tentatively scheduled to begin in late March, according to Sorkin himself, depending on the outcome of the Writers strike.
December 30th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
No wonder why he recently retired his Ali G and Borat characters. Maybe Steven Spielberg made that a prerequisite before staring in this film. We’ll see if he has the acting chops beyond skit comedy and Talladega Nights. I’m actually looking forward to seeing if he can pull it off.
December 30th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Vincent D’Onofrio did a great portrayal of Abbie Hoffman in “Steal This Movie”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161216
December 30th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Had anyone even heard about this being Spielberg’s next flick? It’s not under his name on IMDB, is it a sure thing he’s directing?
Hoffman was quite a character, but I’d rather see an objectively scripted prestige picture made about the life of Timothy Leary.
December 30th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
It was optioned/announced in 2007, and can be seen listed on the imdb pro side under films in development. But as I wrote, he has a bunch of projects in line before this was to be filmed. So Cohen’s casting is a bit odd.