Oliver Stone to turn camera on Bush

How did George W Bush go from "alcoholic bum" to President? Oliver Stone aims to find out. He announced during the Sundance Film festival that his next directing project will be Bush, with Josh Brolin playing the lead. In an interview, he declined to give his personal opinion of the president, although he’s been quoted in the past as saying: "If I were George Bush, I would shoot myself. I think he lives in fear of drinking again. There's nothing more dangerous for America than an ex-alcoholic President who tells you to believe in Jesus."

Stone, who is himself an ex-addict - cocaine rather than booze - is shopping a screenplay to financiers and hopes to start production by April, with a release date in time for the inauguration of Bush's successor in January 2009. He told Variety that Brolin, currently starring in No Country for Old Men, was better looking than Bush, "but has the same drive and charisma that Americans identify with Bush, who has some of that old-time movie-star swagger."
 
The 61-year-old director, who has made films about JFK and Nixon, claims he's looking to craft a "a fair, true portrait of the man. 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."

Coincidentally Stone and Bush attended Yale University at the same time. Stone left after failing his second-semester freshman classes and ended up joining the army and fighting in Vietnam. He never returned to graduate. ·