Who Should Direct the Just-Announced Ronald Reagan Biopic?

Hollywood is giving Ronald Reagan's life the big-screen treatment with a just-announced film based on not one, but two biographies of the former president. A director has yet to be signed, but if this take is really going to depart from the 2003 mini-series The Reagans we need to think outside the box. And so, I propose five directors to take on The Gipper's life after the jump.

1. Todd Haynes

The film begins with the 1981 assassination attempt on the president and then jumps back and forth in time with nine different actors playing Reagan including Tilda Swinton, Robert Downey Jr., Joaquin Phoenix and Dakota Fanning among others.

2. Jean-Luc Godard

This is the kind of prestige project that could get the great director invited to the real Academy Awards ceremony. Though the result would likely be news footage of actual Reagan speeches cut together with huge French intertitles and unrelated short films about Socialism.

3. Julie Taymor

Screenwriter Jonas McCord compares Reagan's childhood to "a surreal Norman Rockwell painting," so lets do this right with the director who makes every film look like an acid trip.

4. Abel Ferrara

Accuracy be damned since Ferrara probably won't even glance at either source biography. Instead, we'll get Regan's devout Catholic childhood and its effect on his career filtered through a kinetic prism of sex, drugs and violence. Harvey Keitel plays Reagan at all ages.

· Alternate suggestion: Werner Herzog, as long as he casts Nicolas Cage.

5. Oliver Stone

After W, it's anybody's guess as to how Stone would handle this material. Regardless, he's probably been working on his pitch since the second this story broke. He probably didn't sleep last night.

Add your own suggestions below!

· Ronald Reagan biopic planned [THR]



Comments

  • The Pope says:

    Nancy Meyers.
    She's been gearing up for ten years.
    When you're caught between invading Grenada and bombing Tripoli, "It's Complicated." When you're negotiating a nuclear agreement, "Something's Gotta Give." When it comes to the issue of choice, he knows "What Women Want."

  • The Winchester says:

    Plus, all her movies all full of rich white people who live extravagant lifestyles in beautiful houses the general public could only dream of.
    But if she takes the reigns, there better be a scene of Reagan in the kitchen (where copper pots hang from the ceiling, obvi), singing Motown into the back of a spoon.

  • The Winchester says:

    As to who should star, the obvious choice is one Tom Berenger.

  • Not Applicable says:

    I nominate Mel Gibson to play Ronny

  • G. Gordon Gordon says:

    Quentin Tarantino would be a wise pick. Harvey Keitel for post-60s Ronnie.

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