Cinema Science

From EW.

Director Oliver Stone, a vocal critic of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, is putting together a feature film project about the current president, and has tapped Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men) as his George W.

Stone, who's shopping around a script completed pre-strike by his Wall Street co-writer Stanley Weiser, told Daily Variety that he does not intend to make a stridently anti-Bush movie, but instead wants to use a style similar to that of The Queen to explain Bush's motivations and rise to prominence. ''People have turned my political ideas into a cliché, but that is superficial,'' Stone told the trade paper. ''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,'' he said, referring to the subjects of his previous films. Stone also asserted that his film will aim to offer a ''fair, true portrait'' of Bush, and will contain surprises for both fans and detractors of the president.

Filming on Bush could start as soon as April. As for Stone's other recent project, a movie about the My Lai massacre called Pinkville, UA has pulled the plug, citing reasons related to the writers' strike — but Stone told Variety he hopes to get that script back and revive it.