New flick based on McClellan exposé?


Imagine this scene: “Quiet on the set!” shouts the assistant director as doughy actor Jonah Hill tugs uncomfortably on the Brooks Brothers suit he’s wearing to portray Scott McClellan. It’s the first day of shooting on “What Happened,” a big-screen adaptation of the former Bush press secretary’s best-selling exposé, and Hill is being directed by Judd Apatow, who turned the tell-all into a raunchy White House coming-of-age story co-starring Seth Rogan as Vice President Cheney and Michael Cera as President Bush.

OK, so maybe that’s not going to happen. But buzz is already beginning to build about a possible docudrama based on the controversial book.

“We’ve been talking to TV people, and interest is starting to come, but it’s too early to say anything,” says McClellan’s literary agent, Craig Wiley, who is also in charge of fielding offers for the book’s ancillary rights.

Should the book be sold to a studio or a TV network, it would mark the sixth project about the Bush presidency that’s currently in development or being shot. Others include Oliver Stone’s “W,” now filming in Shreveport, La.; “Fair Game,” adapted from the book by outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, with “Bourne Identity” director Doug Liman and actress Nicole Kidman attached; “Against All Enemies,” based on counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke’s memoir (but currently on hold); an untitled documentary by Michael Moore, following up his record-breaking “Fahrenheit 9/11”; and a French documentary, “Being W,” which was promoted at the recent Cannes Film Festival with a poster of Bush in clown makeup balancing the planet on his fingertip.

“It’s possible, down the road, that we might do something on the Bush administration,” says HBO Films Senior Vice President Len Amato, who also served as an executive producer on the pay channel’s recent “Recount,” about the acrimonious presidential battle between Bush and former Vice President Al Gore. “Recount” came out eight years after the 2000 election, and Amato says distance can be helpful when weighing the impact of a project taken from the headlines.

“As events are unfolding, it’s like trying to hit a moving target,” Amato says, adding that “it helps to get a little perspective” when filmmakers decide to tackle topical material.

Few recent presidents have drawn Hollywood’s interest like Bush has. His predecessor, Bill Clinton, was never the subject of a docudrama biopic, nor was the president’s father, George H.W. Bush. Ronald Reagan became the lead character in two telefilms: a 2003 CBS biopic that was assailed by conservatives and wound up playing on the network’s sister cable channel Showtime, and a 2001 made-for-Showtime film called “The Day Reagan Was Shot.”

Of course, there have been numerous projects about Richard Nixon, ranging from the 1989 TV movie “The Final Days” and Stone’s big-budget “Nixon” to more unusual endeavors including the 1999 teen comedy “Dick” and the 1984 one-man show “Secret Honor.”

The possibility of more new films about the Bush years will likely be tied to the success or failure of Stone’s biopic, which expects to shoot through July and is tentatively set to premiere Oct. 17, before the presidential elections. Described by its director as a “tragicomedy ... in the vein of ‘Network’ or ‘Dr. Strangelove,’” the film stars Josh Brolin and centers on the president’s Iraq incursion and his troubled relationship with his father.

New flick based on McClellan exposé? - Jeffrey Ressner - Politico.com

Entertainment at it's finest..

I guess it would have to happen. Look at the number of books (relating to Obama) that went to market once Obama got the points.

Just shows the $ side and the fact to many of American's would see the movie without reading the book.
Shame on us for we are the cause of this.
Growing up we didn't have TV in a lot of my Dads duty stations. Radio or reading and it helped me to be able to do things on my own like think through most problems. helped build the imagination ability to see what I was reading, hearing or thinking.
But when we did have TV out went the radio and I stopped reading as much.

Today it is a movie, video, or DVD must society.