“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!)?
January 20th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
That image cracks me up! Haha!
January 20th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Say it aint so!
January 20th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Oh jesus, shit is gonna hit thy fan in Texas.
January 20th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Brolin? Have you seen the guy who played Chunk?!?! He looks like Dubbya’s twin, I swear. Oliver Stone’s going to tear him a new a**
hole.
January 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
nooo…this is a joke, it has to be right?
January 20th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
@sir jorge
No joke, a real deal feature.
Still Developing…
January 20th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
if its a comedy, ill love to watch it.
January 20th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Oliver Stone can’t even wait for his presidency to end before he options a movie on the man’s life. At least, w/ JFK, there was something to make a movie on. But GEORGE W. is going to be as terrible - if not, worse - than WORLD TRADE CENTER.
That man loves to bank on American tragedies. But if there were ever a poster boy for “American tragedy”…
January 20th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Off topic, but not really digging the little comments under the pics. Just seem weird and out of place. Just saying
January 20th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
shouldnt they get that guy who’s playing bush in harold and kumar 2?
ha ha.
January 20th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Oliver Stone needs to give these faux-fiction political films a rest. JFK was filled with tons of “debunked” information.
I hate Bush as much as the next guy, but this is seriously a waste of time. He should go back to making wacky films like Natural Born Killers.
January 20th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I can’t see Josh Brolin as Bush.
January 20th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I think this is a poor decision. The lengthy biopic genre is pretty uninteresting and a lot of why they are successful is because they are usually made after some time has passed and it’s a big lavish period piece and allows people to either remember back when or rethink it, as well as showing something new to younger auidences who missed it the first time around. I don’t think people really want to see a Bush biopic in 2008. It would be far more interesting to see Lincoln or, if it had to be more recent, LBJ or something with the civil rights movement and Vietnam and the Great Society, etc. plus his rise through the Senate.
Also, I think Pinkville could have been a phenomenal movie. It’s a really compelling story and Stone could focus on something that wouldn’t necessarily be as superficially polarizing. I don’t think people are opposed to war movies lately. I just think they are opposed to BAD movies, especially BAD war movies or BAD movies in the social message genre. If something like The Deerhunter or Full Metal Jacket came out, I think audiences would respond really well to it. But no one wants to see a crappy lecture like Lions For Lambs and get hammered over the head with boring characters spewing rhetoric from the 24 news channels or political blogs.
And I think saying Brolin is on the verge of becoming A-List is a bit of a stretch though he had a great year with Grindhouse, American Gangster, and No Country For Old Men. But I just don’t think those movies put him up on the radar to become an A-Lister by any stretch. Maybe A-List in terms of respected directors wanting to work with him in the future, but not controlling and commanding movies and studios in the same way Brad Pitt and George Clooney do. I liked him in all of those movies and hope to see him get some great parts in the future.
January 21st, 2008 at 7:34 am
If Stone uses the same “fact-checking” that he did with JFK, look for a movie about how Bush and “the jewes” flew planes into the trade center with the help of the reptilian aliens.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:31 am
@ GregoryV January 20th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Obviously you haven’t seen the original Bush…
Its a drama.
January 21st, 2008 at 9:34 am
Do they expect this to make money? I could see this as a vanity project, with some wealthy backers putting up the money as a showcase to their political views and kind of a Hollywood status and pr symbol thing. But without them expecting any return on the money, just a flat out purchase, like a shinny diamond ring. But it is hard to see an actual company backing the project. Political films are dying at the boxoffice. Add to that with people already getting weary of the election race and we haven’t even started the months long general election phase yet. By the end of the year, even the most ardent politically aware will be completely burnt out on the subject. This film will struggle to make a dime at the boxoffice.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:39 am
I am going with John Malkovich as Cheney.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:29 pm
We haven’t had a feature film that analyzes how a modern U.S. president rises to power, so I’m interested to see this. Say what you will about Stone and his fever dreams that arise from the ether, but no other director makes presidential epics like Nixon and JFK.
As for box office prospects, we’ll see. There will be more interest in “Bush” than in Nixon. Can’t wait to see Stone depict Bush’s Skull and Bones years et al.
My pick = Clint Eastwood for Cheney.
January 21st, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Wasn’t Will Ferrell free to play GWB ?
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:36 am
I hope he includes PNAC and his daddy’s New World Order
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Like Bush or not, the film is going quite deep. Josh is playing the roll of George W. Bush very well with similar speech and mannerisms. I was on set today as a journalist in a 1978 debate in which Bush got nocked around by a competitor he lost to. I look forward to seeing the final cuts next year.