Music Industry Gets An Injunction Against Rapidshare

In March 2007, a court ruled that Rapidshare could be held responsible for copyright violations committed by users who uploaded copyrighted material to their servers. Now, rumors are circulating that Rapidshare has been shutdown – this does not seem to be the case.

Rapidshare is one of the world’s largest file-hosting sites, with a claimed data storage capability in excess of 4 petabytes and offering at least 110 gigabits of bandwidth.

Almost exactly 1 year ago, P2PBlog reported that the German rights organization GEMA had gained a preliminary injunction against Rapidshare which ordered the company to stop hosting and distributing titles which GEMA represent.

Rapidshare made an appeal – but lost. The court decided that Rapidshare should be forced to monitor all uploads which infringed on GEMA’s copyright – a feat which the company said was impossible.

At the time, GEMA boss Dr. Harald Heker said that the Court’s decision shows that it’s not down to the rights holders to police commercial outfits such as Rapidshare for their copyright works. He went on to say that he felt that the decision would send a major signal to all file-hosting sites where copyright works are used to generate revenue for themselves.

Then in April 2007 it was reported that Rapidshare was fighting back, suing GEMA in response – with the aim of clarifying the legal position for file-hosting sites.

Now, rumors circulating on the web indicate that Rapidshare was shut down. Quite a few sites reported the news but this situation does not appear to be true. Rapidshare’s Wiki page is now closed due to vandalism which is believed to have carried erroneous information which contributed to the confusion.

According to a report, a Rapidshare technician said: “There are rumors concerning attacks made on the Rapidshare.com servers. There are also rumors that Rapidshare has been shut down by a court order. These rumors are false. We would like to apologize to our users and inform them that no data has been lost. There have been some hardware issues as a result of high bandwidth and server overload. We are doing our very best to resolve the hardware issues, and users should expect uptime by midnight tonight (GMT)”

There is no doubt that Rapidshare stores millions of files – including lots of music. The operators of Rapidshare claim they have no idea what material they store on their servers and are in no postion (much like a regular ISP) to monitor or police the content. The users upload the content, they say, and as such, it’s out of their control.

However, the injunctions issued by the District Court in Cologne indicate that Rapidshare’s liability for such infringements still exist as they were carried out during the course of Rapidshare’s business. GEMA head, Harald Heker said at the time: “The mere circumstance of shifting acts of use to users and the purported inability of the operator to control content do not relieve the operator of a service from the copyright liability he/she/it possesses for the content made available for download from the operator’s website(s).”

In the meantime, Rapidshare.com and Rapidshare.de continue to operate.

This article has been updated

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The Top 10 Movies That Really Didn’t Need Video Games

Unfortunately, video game companies aren’t always able to identify what movies viewers would want to insert themselves into. While super hero and action movies lend themselves nicely to the gaming world, let’s not forget the movies that really didn’t need games, but for one reason or another got them anyway. The blessing of movie based video games that gave us Spider-Man 2 can also be the curse that gave us Austin Power’s Pinball.

10. Jaws

Finally, a game that allows me to play as Richard Dreyfuss! I’ve been waiting for this ever since they canceled the Mr. Holland’s Opus game for Sega Saturn. Wait, I don’t get to play as Rich at all? Unfortunately, in Jaws: Unleashed you take control of the finned nightmare that stalks the film’s protagonists. With open ended game play (not very exciting when you realize most of it is empty water), this game is basically Ecco the Dolphin with teeth. Not surprisingly, the game actually was developed by the Echo people, essentially making it exactly that. Just because Jaws is considered the first summer blockbuster doesn’t mean it had to get a game like every other one. I’m still holding out for a Deep Blue Sea spin off myself.

9. The Godfather

Something just doesn’t feel right about making a game out of one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of an old-timey gangster game. In fact, it’s great potential for an awesome game. Everyone loves riddling a wiseguy in a pin-striped suit with bullets from a tommy gun. But why drag The Godfather into it? You’re just setting yourself up for failure when you tie a game to something so revered. But I suppose EA made the studio an offer they couldn’t refuse.

8. Platoon

The gaming world is populated with hundreds of games about war. However, unlike the plethora of games about World War II, it’s not quite as easy to glorify our action in Vietnam. That’s why the development of a game based on Oliver Stone’s Platoon, which focuses heavily on the horrors of the Vietnam war, is so puzzling. The game mostly carries the Platoon title in name alone, not allowing you to do much else besides shoot enemies in the jungle. Not once do you get to rape villagers, do heroin, burn down villages or frag your own officers.

7. Reservoir Dogs

When Quentin Tarantino made Reservoir Dogs, he purposefully left out the scenes you would expect out of a crime movie. Instead of the diamond robbery itself, he focused on the paranoia and interactions that lead up to and spun out of it. That makes a Reservoir Dogs game seem a little silly. Sure they have guns, but about 60% of the movie is people talking in one tiny warehouse. The game chooses to let you play through the aspects of the movie that you never got to see, leaving you with a rather stale crime game about guys in black suits. The only redemption would have been a Dance Dance Revolution style level of Mr. Blonde dancing to “Stuck in the Middle With You” while cutting a cop’s ear off.

6. Wayne’s World

The only way you could possibly defend this game is to say that out of SNL based movies, Wayne’s World deserved a game the most. Talk about damning with faint praise. The movie is about two slackers who sit on their couch and do a public access TV show from a basement. Fine concept for a comedy film, but it doesn’t exactly lend itself to exciting gaming. The player runs around as Wayne in bizarre stages, shooting lasers from your guitar and avoiding such “non-rockin” items as bagpipes and accordions. Still, better than a game of The Ladies Man.

5. Fight Club

There’s something almost poetically ironic about a movie so focused on anti-commercialism and social anarchy becoming the basis for an unoriginal fighting game. Although the fight club is only one element of the film, the creators of this game chose to focus entirely on that and distill the movie down to a simple one-on-one fighting game. Then, in a potent instance of adding insult to injury, completing the whole game unlocks Limp Bizkit lead “singer” Fred Durst as a playable character. However, you could look at the bright side. That means you get to punch Fred Durst in the face whenever you want to.

4. Street Fighter: The Movie

Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game is a game based on a movie based on the game Street Fighter. Instead of cartoon characters fighting each other, now slightly more realistic characters based on the actors in the movie who are supposed to look like the cartoon characters fight each other. There is no reason for this to exist.

3. The Da Vinci Code

It may be a slight mistake to base a video game on a movie where the action packed climax comes in the form of Tom Hanks spinning dials on a tiny puzzle tube. Instead of just focusing on making it a puzzle game, there is actually car chases, stealth and combat as well. Because really, when you think of The Da Vinci Code, you think of action. Not to mention that the fun of a puzzle/mystery game is unraveling the truth of the game yourself, which is impossible when you’ve already read the book and seen the movie. Mystery solved at that point. As far as Tom Hanks movies go, a Philadelphia game might be more fun.

2. Little Nicky

When you look at a list of Adam Sandler movies, it’s possible to see how games could be spun out of them. A Happy Gilmore golfing game perhaps? How about a Waterboy football game? Nope, the movie they decided to immortalize as a game was Little Nicky, a forgettable movie by Adam Sandler standards, and that’s saying something. Besides walking around New York fighting demons and eating Popeye’s chicken, the game features wonderful mini games such as shoving a pineapple up Hitler’s ass (shown above). When a game has to make a whole mini-game based on that gag you know it’s in trouble.

1. Napoleon Dynamite

We all remember a few years ago when Napoleon fever hit the world. Every kind of product imaginable had Jon Heder’s awkward face plastered on it and you couldn’t go three feet without hearing someone quoting it. So it’s really not a shock that some enterprising young game creator pushed ahead a Napoleon game. But that doesn’t make it right. From such activities as tetherball, feeding a llama and dancing that famous dance, you can play through the life of Napoleon with all the excitement and gusto you saw in the film. As in not very much at all.

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Cloverfield Mythos Explored: Monsters + Marketing = Millions

WARNING — SPOILERS AHEAD: This article contains background information and plot details on the film CLOVERFIELD and its viral marketing campaign, and recklessly indulges in spoilers and speculation, so beware.

Paramount’s Cloverfield broke the box office record for best January opening ever, earning an estimated $46 million this holiday weekend. Not so shocking since the J.J. Abrams-produced monster flick was probably the most anticipated film to be released in a month known for its poor box office returns. What is shocking is that special-effects-filled film was made for a mere $25 million, though, that’s not counting all the money spent all its well-known viral marketing campaign.

And what a campaign it was. You can say it all started on 2007’s Fourth of July weekend when an unnamed trailer debuted in front of Transformers. The teaser showed a group of friends at a surprise going-away party for their pal Rob, who’s leaving the next day for his new job in Japan. Right in the middle of the merriment, the building is rocked by what feels like an earthquake. When the party-goers hit the streets to see what happened, WHOA!, flying through the air comes the head of the Statue of Liberty.

Now that’s an attention grabber. Since the teaser didn’t have a name, it became known simply as “Cloverfield” to the hordes of Internet browsers wanting to know WHAT IS THIS MOVIE?!?! Soon after, viral Web sites began springing up, including www.1-18-08.com, which eventually became the film’s the official site. More cryptic were the other sites, which we’ve found out more recently may hold a key to the origins of the Cloverfield monster: slusho.jp, a fictional Japanese company that makes the “Slusho” frozen drink (seen previously in other J.J. Abrams projects); tagruato.jp, a site for the bogus deep-sea drilling company Tagruato; and tidowave.com, the environmentalist organization T.I.D.O WAVE which is fighting against Tagruato. (According to Cloverfield Clues, the T.I.D.O. site was recently locked by the “Internal Affairs Department” presumably for allegedly destroying Targruato’s Chuai oil-rig station and attacking the company’s CEO Ganu Yoshida.)

What do all these viral sites have to do with the New York-based Cloverfield? Well, as it turns out, main character Rob revealed a few weeks ago on his MySpace Blog that the job he’s taking in Japan is as the V.P. of Marketing and Promotions for Slusho. Slusho happens to be owned by Tagruato and the company’s CEO Ganu Yoshida was planning a trip to NYC to meet with the owner of BevVo, the largest privatized water manufacturer in the world, to discuss distributing Slusho through pre-established public waterways and to tour potential Slusho manufacturing plants in the United States.

T.I.D.O. is against Tagruato because they claim that Tagruato’s research and practices are destroying our oceans, which would be the cause for T.I.D.O.’s alleged guerilla tactics.

Now, how does this involve the monster? A recently released Japanese online manga tie-in (said to be the first issue of four) follows the story of Kishin, a Japanese boy who, along with his mother, has something to do with the monster. Simultaneously, we’re shown a cargo ship at sea pulling something chained to the back; we don’t seen exactly what’s being pulled until the last panel when a pair eyes emerges from the water. The ship bears the Targuato logo. (Cloverfield Clues has an English translation; Wired also has coverage.)

So, that ship could be pulling the “Coverfield” monster OR possibly its mother. According to the film’s production notes, Abrams claims that “Clover” is a baby who’s been “down there in the water for thousands and thousands of years.” In the film, it’s insinuated that the confused, frightened monster sprung up from New York Harbor (hence, its first target, The Statue of Liberty) where it either overturned an oil tanker or was disturbed by a capsized oiler tank. According to Cloverfield News, the oil tanker looks like it too bears the Targuato logo.

According to FSR, director Matt Reeves revealed to them that in the final scene with Rob and Beth on the ferris wheel at Coney Island a month before the monster attack, something can be seen splashing into the water behind them. (The clue was to “Watch the skies, my friends. Watch the skies.”). Speculation is that this was the monster either falling into the water, or just splashing around in it. (See image just below at right of the splash in the water.)

But, if the monster was down in the water for thousands of years already, how could it have fallen from the sky? Another theory is that it could be the rogue piece that recently fell off the Japanese government’s “ChimpanzIII” satellite. Why? Because according to the Tagruato Web site, coincidentally, Tagruato scientists and engineers are working on tracking down the missing piece which disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean (the Targuato site is currently “down for maintenance”). Perhaps the fallen satellite is what disturbed the monster’s slumber. Also, according to Cloverfield Ending Credits, the main ingredient for Slusho is found at the satellite deep ocean dropzone and that while searching for satellite and ingredients, Targuato woke the Cloverfield monster. The main ingredient of Slusho apparently has the power to turn a tiny fish into a huge whale (explains the monster’s size) and since deep sea creatures naturally have very high heat resistance, this is why the monster was unaffected by the military bomb attacks.

Whatever the cause, the skyscraper-sized monster is awake now and seemly impervious to military assaults. The filmmakers realized that because of the monster’s size and strength, there’d be no way for the human characters to have intimate contact and combat with it. That’s where all those smaller spider/crab-like parasites come in. If the monster started out as a baby with maybe microscopic parasites on it, it would make sense that if the monster grew to a much larger size, so would the parasites. Apparently, once the monster tore into the city, it was able to remove these pests from its body by rubbing its back against a building, thereby setting the fast-paced and now very vicious parasites free to ravage the citizens of New York City.

And here’s where we get into the super-unknown territory. While we know that the monster is just scared and hungry, chomping away on the tiny little humans, what we don’t know is what the parasites are out for. Typically, a parasite will attach itself and live off a larger organism. In the film, the parasites are smaller than the humans and are attacking by biting. Perhaps they are just blood-sucking parasites? There’s no evidence that they enter the human bodies and take over their new host. Either way, the affects of their attack on the humans is unexplained. Soon after Marlena, one of the main characters, is bitten, she begins bleeding from the eyes and then it seems like her stomach explodes (the audience doesn’t get to see this up close, since Marlena is behind a tarp when this happens and only the outline of her body is shown).

Why don’t we see the gore? In case you didn’t know, Cloverfield is filmed from the perspective of Hud, Rob’s best friend, who was tasked with the recording of Rob’s going-away party. It’s Hud, who, armed with a handycam, captures the Statue of Liberty’s head crashing onto the street in front of their building. From there, Hud and Rob, along with their friends Marlena, Lily, and Jason, attempt to cross the Brooklyn Bridge during a mandatory evacuation of New York City. Rob then receives a phone call from the woman he loves, Beth, who’s injured and trapped in her apartment in midtown — the opposite direction of the evacuation route. That’s when the group decides to turn back to rescue Beth. Their journey — interspersed with footage of the monster’s rampaging — is all captured by Hud’s shaky video camera work, which is why certain aspects of the film are left to the audience’s imagination.

Where does Coney Island come in? Rob’s brother Jason took Rob’s video camera to use at the party, but never put in a new tape. (Why Rob would have a camera that still requires tape is quite interesting, considering the camera seems to have a very high battery life as well as night vision of all things!) Hud was inadvertently recording over footage taken a month prior when Rob and Beth spent the day together. (Rob had always been in love with Beth, but they had been “just friends” until that day when, unbeknownst to their friends, they slept together, then spent the next day having fun in Coney Island). This is why the old footage of Rob and Beth will periodically appear on screen and why the movie ends with the couple on the ferris wheel.

What happened to the monster, the parasites, and the rest of the city? Reports from movie-goers are that if you stay until the movie’s end credits, you can hear someone say “Help us.” This could mean that Rob and Beth, who at the end were trapped under a bridge in Central Park after the military bombed it, could still be alive. Also, it’s said that if you play the audio backward, you can hear someone say, “It’s still alive,” which could mean that the Cloverfield monster is still alive.

As far as the humans go, even if Rob and Beth didn’t survive, Lily was evacuated by military helicopter and last we saw, she survived. We know from the beginning of the movie that the reason we’re seeing this film is because some time after the attack the tape was retrieved. But, we also know that the morning after the attack, the military was going to destroy NYC if they couldn’t defeat the monster. Since the bridge in Central Park where Rob and Beth were hiding under gets bombed by the military that morning, it can be assumed that Manhattan is destroyed. OR, perhaps, since the monster conveniently showed up in Central Park, maybe the military was able to kill the monster and maybe even save Rob and Beth.

Judging by the tape’s survival and the new pictures that were posted on the film’s official site, either the monster was defeated or it gave up the attack and left the city. (I think it’s the latter.) One photo from the site shows a man in a small boat floating in bloodied water; another shows the bloody, bitten into carcass of a whale or some other sea creature. (See the images here after left; click for larger view.)

So, with a film this successful, what about the inevitable sequel? B-D spoke with director Matt Reeves, who said, “Only time will tell. While we were on set making the film we talked about the possibilities and directions of how a sequel can go. The fun of this movie was that it might not have been the only movie being made that night, there might be another movie! In today’s day and age of people filming their lives on their iphones and handy cams, uploading it to youtube…That was kind of exciting thinking about that.” So, if there’s a sequel, it might be chronicling the same events, but through the lens of another person’s perspective.

It’s obvious, though, that this is not the last we’ve seen of Cloverfield.

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Cloverfield Graphic Novel + Last Shot Of Movie = Wink, Wink

So Cloverfield came and shed the “is it just internet buzz?” curse of Snakes on a Plane this weekend by chewing up over $41 million bucks at the box office, and that’s not including the bonus holiday Monday take. Although the film has been out only three days, there’s already more monster-sized rumormongering going on. Consider this your spoiler warning, dorkaholics!

Remember this last shot in the film of our intrepid heroes at Coney Island, enjoying a post-coital day of amusement? Apparently something huge splashes down into the ocean in the background. We missed it, but if you couple it with the translation from the graphic novel that says the Japanese Tagruato corporation’s satellite fell from orbit, then bingo. You’ve got the alarm clock that woke up the monster from its deep-sea slumber. We have no idea if it’s true or not, but there you have it. We now promise you a Cloverfield free week from here on out. Well, maybe.

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Awesome Mashup: Celebrity Heads on Money

Advanced Photoshop Pictures Gallery – 26 image entries

 Contest Directions:  There’s a new craze going in United Kingdom – people take pictures of themselves partially covered with folded banknotes (mostly with queen Elizabeth) in the foreground. The result is merged faces of people and queen Elizabeth on the banknotes. The mix looks surprisingly natural for some. See example – the queen is bald!.
In your entries you should include a banknote (or any country) folded so that the person depicted on the banknote is merged with any celebrity or politician of your choice, similar to how it’s done in this example. Feel welcome to merge the lower part of the face on the banknote or upper part. Please don’t forget to include the name of the celebrity in the entry title.

Top 26 Contest Gallery Pictures

 This photoshop gallery of pictures only contains our top 26 picture selections from its parent contest Money Celebrities. All 37 contest pictures gallery and contest information can be viewed here.

Register free to participate here.

Browse the Best of FreakingNews picture galleries.

Recommend this picture gallery to a friend.

NOTE: This picture gallery is copyright protected. You may not repost any of the pictures inside this gallery on external sites (including message boards and non-profit sites) without express permission from FreakingNews.

Ben Bernanke Money Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke

Jack Nicholson Money Jack Nicholson behind a hundred dollar bill.

Abraham Lincoln Money

Keira Knightly Australian Money

Johnny CASH Money A little tribute to the man in black, Johnny Cash.

Dr. Evil Money

Brad Pitt Money

Fred Thompson Money Fred is perfect for a $2.00 bill.

Kenny Rogers Money Kenny Rogers and a Grant bill

Mr. Bean Money Mr. Bean Invade the Philippines Currency…just for the holiday season.

John Kennedy Money Marconi is on the other side

Gene Wilder Money

Bin Laden Money

Steve McQueen Money

Lindsay Lohan Money

Jack Sparrow Money

Colin Farrell Money Hope you like it

Laurie Hugh Money Laurie Hugh

Pope Money This version is submitted for the sake of purety ie. the folded note as opposed to a merged whole note.

Phyllis Diller Money Phyllis Diller

TomKat Money

Elvis Money

Ben Stiller Money Ben Stiller

Julia Roberts Money

George Lucas Money On a 2000 Lire note

Matthew Mcconaughey Money

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Heath Ledger is Dead

TMZ has learned that 2006 Academy Award nominee Heath Ledger has died in NY.

He was found dead in his bed in one of his residences in Soho by his housekeeper at 3:35 PM ET today. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ they believe it was not a crime, adding that prescription pills were found near his body.

According to NYPD a masseuse arrived at Ledger’s apartment and was let in by a housekeeper. When Ledger didn’t answer his bedroom door, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened it and found him unconscious. They attempted to wake him; when they couldn’t, they called 911.

We’re told when paramedics responded, the actor was in full cardiac arrest. They attempted to perform CPR on him, but were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at the scene.The 28-year-old actor has a two year old daughter with former fiancee Michelle Williams — they separated in September, 2007. He plays The Joker in the upcoming Batman film, “The Dark Knight” and is perhaps best known for his groundbreaking role as Ennis in “Brokeback Mountain.”

We’re told Heath had dinner last night with his model girlfriend Gemma Ward.

Story developing…

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Jack Bauer released from jail…”24″ Still Nowhere in Sight

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Kiefer Sutherland has been released from jail after serving 48 days on a drunken driving charge, according to a police official.

Two police spokesmen did not return phone calls seeking confirmation of a story on People magazine’s Web site saying the 41-year-old actor walked out of jail at 12:05 a.m. Monday, hours earlier than had been expected.

But a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity and wasn’t authorized to speak publicly confirmed that Sutherland had been released.

People quoted police Officer John Balian as saying, “(Kiefer) looked like he was glad to be out,” and that Sutherland was wearing a shirt and jeans when he left the facility.

Sutherland — the star of Fox television’s drama, “24″ — has spent his sentence cleaning sheets, pillowcases and blankets on laundry duty, Balian told The Associated Press on Friday.

“He was very humble, never complained,” Balian said. “He didn’t give us any problems at all.”

Sutherland pleaded no contest in October to driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of 0.08 percent. He was sentenced to 30 days, as well as 18 days for violating probation stemming from a 2004 drunken-driving arrest.

After entering his plea last fall, Sutherland issued a statement saying he was “very disappointed in myself for the poor judgment I exhibited recently, and I’m deeply sorry for the disappointment and distress this has caused my family, friends and co-workers.”

He was granted a request to serve his time in suburban Glendale’s city jail rather than in the overcrowded downtown Los Angeles County jail. The trade-off was that he could not shave any time off his sentence for good behavior or early release because of overcrowding.

The actor must also serve five years probation and complete an 18-month alcohol education program and attend weekly therapy sessions for six months. E-mail to a friend read more | digg story

Fox’s Legal iTunes DVD Rip Works Great, Wastes Plastic

 Amid all of the MacBook Air hullabaloo, you might have forgotten about the Apple announcement that Fox would begin providing “free” iTunes versions of programs via DVD. The first release was Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest, a Star Wars parody. Being the brave product testers that we are, we tried it out. It was, well, kinda weird. You pop in the special Digital Copy disc, and on a Mac, a window automatically pops open telling you to launch iTunes. In iTunes, you are directed to a page where—get this—you enter a code printed on slip inside the DVD case.

 

 The “download” completes, and you have a copy of the show that’s identical in file format to anything you get from iTunes, and it’s locked to your account in the same way. Only you copied it over from a disc. This just feels wrong. As you might expect, the disc and code are useable just once. So why the hell was there a disc at all? I imagine this whole thing would be simpler if Fox would just print the slip and let you redeem it with a bonafide over-the-net download via iTunes.

 

 The version itself looks great, about equal to the DVD, quality wise, and far better than the downsized legal version that Toast 8 lets you move to your iPod if you TiVo’d it when it originally aired. (In case you’re wondering, the DVD is good too, with a Seth MacFarlane/George Lucas interview and a reel showing all of the Family Guy Star Wars references throughout the years.)

I am a fan of this concept. DVD sales aren’t doing so hot, and something like this could really perk them up. Think of all the TV series box sets that would be way more desirable if they came with an automatic iTunes version. Yes, I know there are ways to do it yourself, but those ways are time consuming, not to mention of legal dubiousness. (I think ripping a DVD for yourself is well within the fair-use doctrine, and that Roxio and Nero, not to mention iTunes, should be all over that, but I still worry that the legal squabbles will continually make it hard for mainstream software to embrace it. The music biz may be casting off DRM, but Hollywood is a much more organized, high-tech beast.)

Fox doesn’t appear 100% committed to this. Maybe it was just the need to keep it hush-hush before the Jobsnote, but the case bears a single little sticker saying “Digital Copy,” with no mention of iTunes anywhere. Nor was there a reference to this clearly valuable bonus feature anywhere on the case itself. Even on Amazon, there’s no mention of the fact that you can rip it to your iTunes. That’s why it was all the more surprising when I found the second disc inside: a whole disc wasted for something that they didn’t even mention on the label. That’s strange marketing, Fox. Very strange. [Official Site]galleryPost(‘FamilyGuyFoxDigitalCopy’, 3, ”);

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Oliver Stone to Direct George W. Bush Biopic

“You mean, that boy from The Goonies? Yippie-ki-yay!”

Wowzers. Oliver Stone had hinted at making a feature on the life of the current American president when he did press for the Alexander Director’s Cut, but who knew it’d come together this quick? Filming could begin as soon as April for the George W. Bush biopic, brilliantly entitled Bush, which could mean a theatrical release right in time for the next election or inauguration. Of course, a SAG strike would cause delay. Stone says the film won’t be a “polemic”…

“Here, I’m the referee, and I want a fair, true portrait of the man,” Stone told Variety. How did Bush go from an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world? It’s like Frank Capra territory on one hand, but I’ll also cover the demons in his private life, his bouts with his dad and his conversion to Christianity, which explains a lot of where he is coming from. It includes his belief that God personally chose him to be president of the United States, and his coming into his own with the stunning, preemptive attack on Iraq. It will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors.”

Josh Brolin, shooting onto the A-list after his performance in No Country For Old Men, will portray the controversial 43rd U.S. president. The script, by Stanley Weiser (Wall Street, Project X) is already completed and is now being shopped to the studios. Stone said he collaborated with Weiser on over a year of research before moving on to Pinkville, a Vietnam film that was to be his next project before the strike put the kibosh on it. Actually, Stone says United Artists simply lost faith in the film due to the notorious poor performance of recent war films. But that’s a news item for another day. More Stone on Bush…

Underlying how much planning has already gone into the project, which has gone under the aliases P.O.T.U.S. (think about it) and Misunderestimated, the film’s producer Moritz Borman says…

“We’ve just gone out with it, and April is just around the corner. If we can get it done as an independent or with a studio, we can do it quickly, but nobody really knows what is happening with the SAG situation. We’ve found locations in Louisiana, but we will have to build sets, especially the White House. We could do it later, because it’s not a film that has to be timed with the election; it’s a character study of a man.”

Who should play Cheney? Who should play Jenna? And who should voice God, if applicable (c’mon it’s Stone!)?

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I am Legend Predicts Super Bowl

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