The Scorecard Review news
News: Warren Beatty is set to return to the director's chair after 13 years, with a film about loony tycoon Howard Hughes. Beatty will also write, produce and star in the film as Howard Hughes, next to a whole list of potential names that could include Jack Nicholson, Andrew Garfield, Evan Rachel Wood, Rooney Mara, Annette Bening, Shia LaBeouf, and Alec Baldwin.
Source: Deadline
Thoughts by TSR: Why is Warren Beatty making a Howard Hughes movie less than ten years after Martin Scorsese's own Hughes documentary, The Aviator? Who knows. Perhaps Beatty, who has been off the silver screen for ten years now, has been going through his own Hughes moments - locking himself in a screening room and watching Ishtar on repeat. (OK, I wasn't able to finish Ishtar, because it sucked.)
Snide aside, the word is that Beatty's movie isn't going to be an exact biopic, but instead portray the man later in his life while he has a fling with a younger lady. While I can't exactly remember if this did or didn't happen in The Aviator, I can say that this concept could at least force Beatty's Hughes to stray away from focusing on the man's idiosyncrasies, and more on this unusual relationship. Reports say this is a comedy - so maybe this will function like Bulworth, in which his title conservative politician began an unlikely relationship with a woman played by Halle Berry? Either way, don't expect this to be Reds 2, in sense of tone or length.
Speaking of Reds, the potential of Jack Nicholson appearing in the film has to happen. Nicholson is a classic just like Beatty, and whatever story this movie tells would be of great benefit with some true star power (at least over Alec Baldwin).
And finally - poor Christopher Nolan. Apparently the Batman Begins writer/director has stored away in his Nolan cave a script called "Mr. Hughes," for a "very unusual" project about Hughes that was once had Jim Carrey attached in the 2000's. It was shut down by Scorsese's The Aviator, and now it seems if Beatty actually gets this one done, that his script "Mr. Hughes" will be collecting even more dust. And while this was before he technically finished Inception, Nolan said in 2006 that "It's the best thing I've ever written, that I'm most proud of." Ouch. Here's to hoping we see that film sometime in "the future ... the future ... the future ... the future."
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