Breaking: Oliver Stone to Direct George W. Bush Film Starring Josh Brolin
Posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 by Hunter Stephenson
“You mean, that boy from The Goonies? Yippie-ki-yay!”
Wowzers. Oliver Stone had hinted at making a feature on the life of the current American president when he did press for the Alexander Director’s Cut, but who knew it’d come together this quick? Filming could begin as soon as April for the George W. Bush biopic, brilliantly entitled Bush, which could mean a theatrical release right in time for the next election or inauguration. Of course, a SAG strike would cause delay. Stone says the film won’t be a “polemic”…
“Here, I’m the referee, and I want a fair, true portrait of the man,” Stone told Variety. How did Bush go from an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world? It’s like Frank Capra territory on one hand, but I’ll also cover the demons in his private life, his bouts with his dad and his conversion to Christianity, which explains a lot of where he is coming from. It includes his belief that God personally chose him to be president of the United States, and his coming into his own with the stunning, preemptive attack on Iraq. It will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors.”
Josh Brolin, shooting onto the A-list after his performance in No Country For Old Men, will portray the controversial 43rd U.S. president. The script, by Stanley Weiser (Wall Street, Project X) is already completed and is now being shopped to the studios. Stone said he collaborated with Weiser on over a year of research before moving on to Pinkville, a Vietnam film that was to be his next project before the strike put the kibosh on it. Actually, Stone says United Artists simply lost faith in the film due to the notorious poor performance of recent war films. But that’s a news item for another day. More Stone on Bush…
“It’s a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to ‘Nixon,’ to give a sense of what it’s like to be in his skin. But if ‘Nixon’ was a symphony, this is more like a chamber piece, and not as dark in tone. People have turned my political ideas into a cliche, but that is superficial. I’m a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison and Alexander the Great.”
Underlying how much planning has already gone into the project, which has gone under the aliases P.O.T.U.S. (think about it) and Misunderestimated, the film’s producer Moritz Borman says…
“We’ve just gone out with it, and April is just around the corner. If we can get it done as an independent or with a studio, we can do it quickly, but nobody really knows what is happening with the SAG situation. We’ve found locations in Louisiana, but we will have to build sets, especially the White House. We could do it later, because it’s not a film that has to be timed with the election; it’s a character study of a man.”
Who should play Cheney? Who should play Jenna? And who should voice God, if applicable (c’mon it’s Stone!)?
