New Films in Production

[Barmy]

[flyonthewall2983]

Oliver Stone to make 'fair' George Bush biopic

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Director Oliver Stone, who has made movies about Presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, is developing a project about the current occupant of the White House, but promises it will not be a hatchet job, Daily Variety reported on Sunday.

Stone is in talks with Josh Brolin, who is starring in "No Country For Old Men," to play the title role in "Bush," the trade paper said.

He is shopping the script to financiers and hopes to start production by April, with a release date in time for the election in November, or the inauguration of Bush's successor in January.

Stone told Daily Variety that he planned to make "a fair, true portrait" of Bush, focusing on such areas as his relationship with his father, President George H.W. Bush, his wild youth, and his conversion to Christianity.

"It will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors," said Stone.

He said Brolin was better looking than Bush, "but has the same drive and charisma that Americans identify with Bush, who has some of that old-time movie-star swagger."

A White House spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. Bush has acknowledged that he was a heavy drinker in his younger days, but has long been sober.

Stone, who has had his battles with drink and drugs, earned three Oscar nominations for his 1991 conspiracy film "JFK." In 1996, he also received a script nomination for "Nixon," which starred Anthony Hopkins. He won best directing Oscars for the Vietnam sagas "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July."

Other historical figures reinterpreted by Stone include dead rock star Jim Morrison in "The Doors," and Alexander the Great in "Alexander."

In 2002, he shot a flattering documentary about Cuban leader Fidel Castro for HBO, but the pay-cable network told him to balance it with more footage about political prisoners on the communist island.

Stone's efforts last year to film a documentary about another Bush nemesis, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also hit turbulence. His request for access was denied with an official reportedly dismissing the filmmaker as "part of the Great Satan."

[domino harvey]

Oliver Stone's The Movie No One Asked For

[CSM126]

Oliver Stone's The Movie No One Asked For

...Part 22.

[David Ehrenstein]

Shoot me now.

[Steven H]

Shoot me now.

You have to suffer with the rest of us.

[David Ehrenstein]

Yummy Diego Luna has joined the cast of Milk.

[Michael]

Yummy Diego Luna has joined the cast of Milk.

Yummy is the right word. Van Sant knows how to pick guys.

[Jeff]

Yummy Diego Luna has joinjed the cast of Milk.

There is a thread for Milk here.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Oliver Stone to make 'fair' George Bush biopic

Here is a more in-depth look at the film with more quotes from Stone...

Oliver Stone votes for 'Bush' project

Josh Brolin to play embattled president

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Oliver Stone has set his sights on his next directing project, "Bush," a film focusing on the life and presidency of George W. Bush, and attached Josh Brolin to play the title role.

The director has begun quietly shopping a script by his "Wall Street" co-writer Stanley Weiser.

Pic will be produced by Moritz Borman, who teamed with Stone on "World Trade Center" and "Alexander," and Jon Kilik, a producer of "Alexander" as well as "Pinkville," the pre-strike project about the Army's investigation of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam that Stone expected to direct until United Artists pulled the plug late last year.

Borman said Weiser's script was completed before the WGA strike and was ready to shoot and that many of Stone's "Pinkville" crew jumped right into "Bush." If financing materializes quickly enough, the film could start production by April and could be in theaters for the election or the inauguration.

One need only Google the words "Stone" and "Bush" to find plenty of the director's critical comments about the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq. Despite that, the director said he's not looking to make an anti-Bush polemic. His goal is to use seminal events in Bush's life to explain how he came to power, using a structure comparable to "The Queen."

"It's a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to 'Nixon,' to give a sense of what it's like to be in his skin," Stone told Daily Variety. "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."
More than one option

* (Co) Daily Variety
Filmography, Year, Role
* (Co) Daily Variety

Stone declined to give his personal opinion of the president.

"I can't give you that, because the filmmaker has to hide in the work," Stone said. "Here, I'm the referee, and I want a fair, true portrait of the man. 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."

Stone said his NYU classmate Weiser did a lot of research as they worked for more than a year on the project before setting the script aside when Stone committed to "Pinkville." While UA partners Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise said they pulled the plug on that movie because of the WGA strike, Stone seemed to support widespread speculation that the strike was an excuse to kill another war-themed movie that UA was wary of making after its first release, "Lions for Lambs," flopped.

"On 'Pinkville,' I had a great script and one of the best casts on any of my films, with 40 young actors and Bruce Willis," Stone said. "It's a shame they lost faith in the film, and that they unemployed 500 people right before Christmas. We were three weeks from shooting."

Stone hopes to get his script back so he can revive "Pinkville" down the line.

Stone, Weiser and Borman had kept the "Bush" script under tight wraps, developing it under "POTUS" (President of the United States) and "Misunderestimated." Now they're aiming for a quick ramp-up to production, though both Stone and Borman believe the project will remain viable even after the presidential election.

"We've just gone out with it, and April is just around the corner," Borman said. "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."

Stone looked carefully at actors before setting his sights on Brolin, whose career has drawn recent traction from memorable roles in "No Country for Old Men" and "American Gangster." Brolin just began work on the Gus Van Sant-directed "Milk," playing Dan White, the San Francisco pol who gunned down Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. While Brolin won't make a formal deal until financing is sealed, he can be ready for an April start.

"Josh is actually better looking than Bush but has the same drive and charisma that Americans identify with Bush, who has some of that old-time movie-star swagger," Stone said.

[HerrSchreck]

Not exactly in production, but I can't help mentioning the forthcoming American remake of the brilliant Pang Bros Hong Kong horror-suspense near-masterpiece from 2002 called THE EYE. I don't have the energy to start a thread.

With Jessica Alba in a Tom Cruise-steered production, this will no doubt be brain starch.

[colinr0380]

Not exactly in production, but I can't help mentioning the forthcoming American remake of the brilliant Pang Bros Hong Kong horror-suspense near-masterpiece from 2002 called THE EYE. I don't have the energy to start a thread.

With Jessica Alba in a Tom Cruise-steered production, this will no doubt be brain starch.

Considering the original was one of the most annoyingly conservative horror films I've seen in recent years they can remake it into oblivion! No wonder Cruise latched onto it as it puts forward the idea that sometimes it is better just to live in ignorance of the forces swirling around you!

I much prefer the Pang Brothers' crime films One Take Only and Bangkok Dangerous - the "everyone must pay in the end" dark, inevitable end seems to work much better in that genre than horror.

By the way The Eye has recently been surpassed in my "hatred for horror films that casually put across pat moral lessons in attempts to think they are being profound but instead are playing in a deeply cynical way on audiences fears to give their crappy film some tacked on 'significance'" category by the French film Ils (Them). Like The Eye, discussion of what irritates me so much about the film involves discussing the 'twist' ending in which:

Spoiler

the unseen characters terrorising the couple in the house turn out to be a bunch of teenage 'hoodies' - I can just see people going "wow, yeah this confirms all my fears about teenagers as nasty, animal killers" rather than saying to each other "wow, this film took an issue already twisted by the media and turned it into a piece enabling all my fears about kids" Jeez!

EDIT: What do you know - I didn't realise it until checking their credits on imdb but David Moreau and Xavier Palud, the directors of Ils, are also directing The Eye remake! Someone else must have thought they were the perfect choice for the project!

[HerrSchreck]

Sounds like Funny Games.

Seriously though-- them's be some Strong Feelings about The Eye, Colin. Personally I think you're reading an awful lot into the "text", which isn't really much of anything... mostly an excuse for a series of set-pieces. The idea for making the film (the Pangs) started out with

that tanker explosion which winds up taking the girls newfound eyesight in the end

, so I think that reading the film as "sometimes it's better, when you're seeing things that disturb you, to take a fork and knife and start mashing them into your eye sockets and break the yolk over easy" is a little strained. SEMI SPOILER ALERT EXCEPT FOR KINSAYDER: I mean the girl was born blind, never learned to see inna first place, and starts out seeing demons & phantoms as soon as she gets to see. So her "seeing" thing is not something the viewer should really strain to draw analogies with. It's like a baby coming outa the womb and getting called a fuckin wiseguy for crying and getting it's ass kicked around the room from that day forward. it'Cut the girl some slack for being a bit more relaxed and maybe lving a bit more "comfortable" when the horror is gone. Extracting "sometimes it's better to ignore the war in Iraq and a troubled society than confront it" from that, I really think, is a bit hyperactive in the mind dept. Some films are just silly entertainment-- like a rollercoaster ("having to get off the rollercoaster is a sign of something terrible in folks... a desire to escape the challenges of life, rather than stay on and meet the challenge".) It's just mindless entertainment, a little vacation from life with some good suspense and silly shocks, rather than an active comment upon it.

[colinr0380]

Sounds like Funny Games

It is very interesting to compare Funny Games to Ils, but with Ils you are meant to believe this is a true story rather than being constantly reminded that everything is contrived but the pain in the Haneke film. Strangely the winking, all knowing lads from Funny Games come across as a lot more human than the mostly faceless puppets called upon to do the stalking, drugging and bludgeoning the script requires be done to the characters from Ils! (Or rather Funny Games is more honest in laying out its intentions than the pure entertainment of Ils) I'd bet anyone who likes one film would hate the other and vice versa!

Personally I think you're reading an awful lot into the "text", which isn't really much of anything... mostly an excuse for a series of set-pieces.

Give me the Ring any day!

Both The Eye and Ils struck me as being the Breaking The Waves of horror films - they might be quite good up to the ending (Ils creates some quite tense sequences while The Eye does have a few good set pieces despite feeling the need to constantly telegraph everything to make sure we get the point of what is about to happen bludgeoned into us until any surprise or even interest is removed) but like the bells of Breaking the implications put forward by the ending try to add some sort of spurious significance to what is in the end just a scary piece of entertainment. I was just listening again to David Fincher's commentary for Panic Room last night and he hit on something when he commented that he just wanted to make an exciting film that didn't try to put across a message at the end - it literally was just an exciting action film with no more significance than that (though actually in that case I think he was selling his film short!)

I think it was just the way they let her get away relatively lightly at the end - if they had the courage to have her so distressed by the things she sees that she blinds herself a la Ray Milland in Man With The X-Ray Eyes, or had her learning to live with her gift I would perhaps have liked the film more but they gave her a kind of undeserved closure (a good comparison would be to Ring, where a similarly 'tidy' ending occurs - go down the well and hug a skeleton and everything will be OK - only to be exposed for the pat ending it is as the curse continues and even widens)

I also fail to see what trauma the main character has gone through: she has been given the gift of sight, got to see 'behind the curtain' of real life, had a nice trip to Thailand, escaped death and got a boyfriend to boot while everyone else suffers around her! No wonder she is happy at the end!

Having said all this I agree Herr Schreck that this is purely my own personal reaction. For example while I could argue that Swtichblade Romance is ruined by the logic defying twist, The Eye and Ils have a coherence and a logical plot - just ones that are personally irritating to me! Don't see this as an attack on yourself as I really like everything you have to say about films, The Eye is just one of my 'rant' triggers at the moment! (I also want to hear more about what you like about the film to see if you can win me over as I really don't enjoy hating any film so much!)

I want to repeat that I still stand by and recommend checking out One Take Only and Bangkok Dangerous though - I enjoyed those films a lot.

[Antoine Doinel]

Mark Romanek has left Wolfman.

[Oedipax]

Huh, I was wondering what Romanek was up to these days - One Hour Photo didn't make quite the splash it was intended to, I gather, but his music videos suggest such potential that I was hoping he'd get another try sooner rather than later. That having been said, I don't think Romanek's name would be enough to get me in the theater for a Wolfman movie.

[miless]

I read in a recent Film Comment that Béla Tarr is beginning production on his new film "The Horse of Turin" (apparently it isn't about Nietzsche's encounter with a horse in Turin that led to his break-down, although it is inspired by it). It is being produced by the former organizer of some special events at Cannes (who's also producing the new Chantal Akerman film and a debut feature from a spanish filmmaker).

[dx23]

According to Yahoo Movies, there is going to be a remake/re-invention of the Friday the 13th:

"Nightmare" to haunt big screen again

Freddy's back. Again.

New Line is in talks with horror production company Platinum Dunes to re-launch the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie series, the franchise that helped establish the studio.

The first "Nightmare" movie was made by Wes Craven and released in 1984. The runaway success of the film spawned a slew of sequels and created one of the most popular villains in screen history, Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund.

The film centered on Krueger, a serial child killer murdered by angry parents, who returns with a burned face and a razor glove to terrorize teens in their dreams.

A screenwriter will be hired once the Writers Guild of America strike ends. The producers -- Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form -- are hoping to focus part of the new movie on Krueger's backstory.

Platinum Dunes is prepping another re-launch, "Friday the 13th," which will be directed by Marcus Nispel for New Line, for whom it remade "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and its sequel.

The company is remaking "Near Dark" for Rogue and "The Birds" for Universal. It is also prepping a non-remake project, an untitled David Goyer thriller.

Surprised to see that the Birds remake still on agenda after 2 years of development.

[mogwai]

Arrested Development Movie in Development!
Source: E! Online

Kristen at E! Online was told by Jason Bateman that "the creative minds behind 'Arrested Development' (Mitch Hurwitz and Ron Howard) have put the wheels in motion toward a major motion picture of the Fox TV comedy so many of us adore. I'm told by insiders that Jason and other Bluth family members have received calls from producers (Hurwitz and Howard) asking if they would be willing to shoot a movie."

"I can confirm that a round of sniffing has started," Bateman said. "Any talk is targeting a poststrike situation, of course. I think, as always, that it's a question of whether the people with the money are willing to give our leader, Mitch Hurwitz, what he deserves for his participation. And I can speak for the cast when I say our fingers are crossed."

She adds that other cast members were called and that everyone seems to be very much on board and excited by the prospect.

My God, I hope this fucking happens.

[domino harvey]

I read an interview with Tambor yesterday that confirmed Bateman's story

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Mark Romanek has left Wolfman.

Joe Johnston is the new director for this film.

[Antoine Doinel]

The producers are hoping to reinvent the coming-of-age story for the 21st century, calling the film an intellectual comedy a la "Juno" and "Election." [Hayden] Panettiere will play an acerbic teen, and [Kieran] Culkin ("Igby Goes Down") will be her oblivious boyfriend.

Sigh.

[Cold Bishop]

The producers are hoping to reinvent the coming-of-age story for the 21st century, calling the film an intellectual comedy a la "Juno" and "Election." [Hayden] Panettiere will play an acerbic teen, and [Kieran] Culkin ("Igby Goes Down") will be her oblivious boyfriend.

Who wants to bet "reinvent" means imitate every hip indie comedy out there. What? No takers? Smart crowd.

And speaking of smarts, I don't think fans of Juno would even refer to it as an "intellectual comedy".

[domino harvey]

The producers are hoping to reinvent the coming-of-age story for the 21st century, calling the film an intellectual comedy a la "Juno" and "Election." [Hayden] Panettiere will play an acerbic teen, and [Kieran] Culkin ("Igby Goes Down") will be her oblivious boyfriend.

Who wants to bet "reinvent" means imitate every hip indie comedy out there. What? No takers? Smart crowd.

And speaking of smarts, I don't think fans of Juno would even refer to it as an "intellectual comedy".

I dunno, "Got any bones that need collecting?" is pretty cerebral

[David Ehrenstein]

Non-fans of Juno certainly wouldn't.