Oliver Stone's new movie "W" to show President Bush as he really is!

President George W. Bush is a foul-mouthed, reformed drunk obsessed with Saddam Hussein and baseball, and has a highly neurotic relationship with his father. At least that's how he's portrayed in the script for Oliver Stone's upcoming new film, "W."

In the script for Stone’s film, we see an informal white house, where everybody is calling everybody else nicknames and chatting about whether to go to war as if they were chatting about how to bet on a football game. Unfortunately, unlike Stone’s movie, “Nixon,” there are no white house tapes that he can point to for claims of accuracy, but it seems likely that most of what will end up onscreen will be fairly accurate. Stone himself notes he wants to make "a fair and true portrait" of President Bush.

"W," which is set to begin filming in Shreveport, La., with Bill Block's QED financing a budget of about $30 million, stars Josh Brolin as Bush and James Cromwell as Bush’s father, the former President. The film is being closely watched in entertainment and political circles, in part because Stone has said his goal is to release it while Bush is still in office and possibly in time for the November election. Other actors Stone has signed for the film include, Elizabeth Banks as First Lady Laura Bush, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Ellen Burstyn as W.’s mother, Barbara Bush, Ioan Gruffudd as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell and Rob Corddry as White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.

In an early draft of the script, then titled "Bush" the president's policy judgments are often shown to be manipulated by his White House staff. Bush is shown as being the passive receiver of policy and the White House is mostly being run by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and other top advisors.

Some eye-popping details in the screenplay, include a scene in which Bush nearly crashes a plane while under the influence of alcohol. On pages 48 of the script, a "slightly snookered” W. nearly kills his friend Don Evans during a joy ride in a Cessna jet. Evans gets worried when the jet begins to wobble and shake. He asks W., "Tell me the truth—this is the first time you've ever flown a Cessna, isn't it?" W's response: "This is how you learn. By doing. No need to ask a million questions." Could this scene, which ends with the plane spinning out of control and landing in a desert, be a metaphor for W.'s learn-by-doing approach to war?

In another scene W. tells his wife Laura he wishes his father had never been elected president. "I'll never get out of Poppy's shadow," he tells Laura. "They'll all keep saying what's the boy ever done… I mean who ever remembers the son of a President?" Laura's rejoinder is heavy with dramatic irony: "You forgot John Quincy Adams."

Stone declined to comment on how accurate the script may be to what he will start shooting, but screenwriter Stanley Meiser, who wrote the screenplay and also co-wrote Stone's "Wall Street," said: "I have no comment other than the fact that I have read 17 books on President Bush."

"We've done our homework," said Moritz Borman, one of the film's producers. " 'W' will not be a documentary. It will be a compelling account of the actions and motivations of this president, fully guided by facts that have been established and documented."

What ends up in the final draft could have a big impact on the market for the film, whose financial prospects may actually depend on how many feathers it ruffles. "Controversy can only help this film," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of boxoffice tracking firm Media By Numbers. "It's a tough marketing challenge because none of the politically charged films or films about the war have been doing well. But Oliver Stone's bread and butter is controversy. It's part of his brand."

Stone's previous presidential examinations, 1991's "JFK" and 1995's "Nixon," became cultural lightning rods. “JFK”grossed $70.4 million and “Nixon” only $13.7 million domestically. A film analyzing the life of a lame-duck president might be a tough sell, especially if Americans are more interested in the man or woman who will replace him. "But the country is in really rough shape," Dergarabedian said. "So maybe people will want to know how we got here and what Bush's legacy might be."

QED's Block acknowledged that controversy would help market the film, which he said he pre-sold to some foreign distributors during the Berlin Film Festival in February and will continue to sell at the Cannes market next month. The QED CEO, who is also one of the picture's producers, said he was in talks with a major Hollywood studio to distribute it domestically. He declined to name the studio.

Because no domestic deal is in place, it is uncertain whether the movie will be released in North America before November. Such a release date would drop the picture squarely into the presidential election debate, where it would likely be picked apart by commentators from the right of the political spectrum.

Like many of Stone’s previous movies, the story will inter-cut between time periods, as it follows Bush from his twenties to the White House. It begins in the Oval Office with the president and his staffers discussing the term "axis of hatred" and then deciding that "axis of evil" sounds better. We then flash back to a young Bush in 1966 showing us a drunken Bush during a Yale fraternity house party.

In another striking scene, the young Bush challenges his father to a fistfight after coming home drunk. On page 21, after being accepted to Harvard Business School, W. downs a pint of Wild Turkey and drives onto the lawn of his parents' Washington, D.C. home, where he challenges his daddy to a boxing match. George Senior’s reaction is pretty reasonable: "My advice to you son, is to go to an AA meeting." George W. reacts in a child-like way: "Thank you, Mr. Perfect. Mr. War Hero… Mr. Fucking-God-Almighty."

Likewise Bush's relationship with his intellectual superior, Vice-President Dick Cheney is depicted as far more competitive than is generally acknowledged. At one point, Bush tells Cheney: "Just keep your ego in check. I'm the president. I'm the decider." Bush famously used the term, “I’m the decider” in a news conference where reporters challenged who was actually in control at the white house.

In the script Bush also is portrayed as jejune, by the many silly names he gives to his associates: He refers to his political advisor Karl Rove by the nickname of "Turdblossom," Colin Powell is called "Balloon Foot," and Russian President Vladamir Putin is known as "Pooty Poot." W. also treats many of his advisers poorly, calling Paul Wolfowitz "Wolfmeister" and at one point he tells him to "think about trimming those ear hairs of yours."

W.’s penchant for foul language is brought out on page 25 when press secretary Ari Fleischer tells him that AP reporter Helen Thomas is asking "about secret plans for military actions in Iraq" and wondering "what makes Saddam any different from other dictators?" W. flips out, and rants at Fleischer: "Did you tell her I don't like motherfuckers who gas their own people?! Did you tell her I don't like assholes who try to kill my father?! …Did you tell her I'm going to kick his SORRY MOTHERFUCKING ASS ALL OVER THE MIDEAST?!"

W.’s poor response answering questions from the press is also highlighted. When a Time magazine reporter asks W. to answer a simple question, W. shows his shallowness with his answer: “After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?" Just as he did in real life, W. evasively replies: "I wish you would have given me this question ahead of time, so I could plan for it."

On page 20 we get Stone’s take on W’s near-death experience. While watching the 2002 Miami Dolphins vs. the Baltimore Ravens playoff game at the White House, the klutzy W. gets a pretzel stuck in his throat. He "pounds his chest with his fist" then "faints, falling to the floor, hitting his head, and "only then does the pretzel dislodge. W. "takes a long, deep breath, feeling lucky to have survived the biggest ordeal of his presidency."

The script also show us the Rev. Billy Graham converting W. from the dark side, at Kennebunkport, Maine in 1985. W. and Rev. Graham are walking along a "rocky shoreline" as waves crash "against a promontory" when W. confides to Graham: "There's a darkness that follows me… and no matter how many times I go to church and pray; no matter how hard I try to reach out to the Lord, that darkness still has me hooked." He also complains: "People say I was born with a silver spoon, but they don't know …the burden that (silver spoon) carries."

Thankfully, W.’s burden is soon coming to an end, and the darkness will follow him away from Washington, D.C. Oliver Stone’s movie will most likely be seen in theaters, shortly after Bush exits the White House, in January, 2009.


-- Compiled from various recent media reports on the script of Oliver Stones new movie, "W"