Stone’s ‘W’ partners with Lionsgate: Controversy to follow?

Lionsgate Films jumped at the opportunity to get the distribution rights to Oliver Stone new presidential drama/biopic W., set for release in October – a proper time for the nation to reflect on the past eight (either contentious and frustrating or appropriate and rational, depending where on the political spectrum one lies) years of Bush influence.

While still scouting for a juggernaut to play our rigid and expressionless veep Dick Cheney, Stone cast Josh Brolin (“No Country for Old Men”) as Bush and Elizabeth
Banks as sweet and innocent gal-next door Laura Bush, née Welch.

With “W”, Stone completes an unofficial presidential trilogy, with “JFK” in 1991 and “Nixon” in 1995 (maybe even a foursome with 2001’s TV feat “The Day Reagan Was Shot”).

Stone is no stranger to controversy and greets it like an old friend. “Platoon”, “Wall Street”, “Born on the Fourth of July”, “The Doors”; Stone never objects to controversy or deigns to make films without meaning. If anything about him is consistent, it is the heavily historical and political influence in his films.

And as a former classmate of Bush at Yale University (before Stone dropped out to fight in Vietnam), Stone feels the personal touch of this film. Growing up in the same generation yet splintering onto completely different ideologies and paths, Stone still promises “W” as a “fair, true portrait of the man”. Detractors (as their name implies) are not so sure.

Given the government’s blessing to film World Trade
Center, something tells me “W” will fall short of that grace. There have been stabs at Stone about an early bootleg script–it wasn’t accurate enough, it harped too long on Bush’s more uncomfortable moments (the infamous pretzel). But Stone isn’t out to make a documentary. He has even said “this movie can be funnier because Bush is funny. He’s awkward and goofy and makes faces all the time. He’s not your average President. So let’s have some fun with it. What are they going to do? ‘Discredit’ me again?”

It’s no use to complain about Bush’s legacy. History will make him out to be whatever the prevailing theory is and a hundred years from now, he’ll be a paragraph in a U.S. history textbook. His eight years all almost up, a new President awaits us, Bush will retreat to Crawford, and the apocalypse will continue to not come. Stone’s film is still just that – a film, some entertainment for U.S. Americans – if he can ever find a decent Cheney.