According to Variety, Darren Aronofsky is attached to produce and direct a film called The General, which Paramount is negotiating to acquire, described as an “Unforgiven-like tale” about George Washington. The script was written by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, whose credits include, strangely, Accepted, the Justin Long movie about making up a fake college, the Olsen twin-vehicle New York Minute, and story credit on Brett Ratner’s Tower Heist. With these guys’ track record, I’m surprised The General isn’t about the car insurance guy.
Par is exclusively eyeing the project under its first-look deal with Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures banner. If the studio doesn’t close a deal in the next couple of days, others get a shot — and interest is expected to be high, with Aronofsky coming off the $329 million worldwide gross and awards success of “Black Swan.”
Plot details are being kept under wraps, but sources tell Variety that the script is more of an “Unforgiven”-like tale rather than a straight historical drama.
I have no idea what this means. If Clint Eastwood’s character in Unforgiven had been Ulysses Grant, wouldn’t it then be a historical drama? Or some kind of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter-type thing? This is as close to a perfectly nonsensical description as it gets. “It’s like Passion of the Christ meets Air Bud, but based on the life of Susan B. Anthony.” Okay, sure, guy, well that clears things up.
Helmer is currently casting his Biblical epic “Noah,” which has Russell Crowe set to star as the title character. Aronofsky is also eyeing The Weinstein Co.’s Judy Garland biopic “Get Happy,” which has Anne Hathaway attached to play the “Wizard of Oz” star. It’s unclear whether “The General” or “Get Happy” would serve as the helmer’s follow-up to “Noah.”
Other than the odd choice of writing team, I’m all for a movie about George Washington and what a hardass he was. He was probably our second most Clint Eastwoody of presidents, behind Andrew Jackson, who openly referred to Indians as “red gooks.”
[Thanks to Ace Rimmer for bringing this next video to my attention, I actually hadn’t seen it before. It’s very relevant.]