peter morgan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If anything can make you forget the disappointment of Quantum of Solace, it's the news that James Bond 23 has taken the first big steps into production. No, that's not casting Bond girls or plotting explosions, but writing the script. Not surprisingly, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have looked again to the cream of Britain's film crop and hired a man who's gotten some attention at the Oscars lately: Peter Morgan. Few of his scripts have gone wrong (The Other Boleyn Girl is one mark on an otherwise impeccable record .. and even then, it's not that bad) and he'll definitely lend a lot of gravitas to the project. A lot.

Morgan won't be penning 23 solo, however. He's got some old hands in
Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (the pens behind both Quantum and Casino Royale), who are returning to the franchise ... and well, so long Paul Haggis. I guess he's taking the fall for Quantum.

So, now to find that new director. Rumors swirled that Danny Boyle had been offered the job, but that was quickly shot down by Boyle in an e-mail to EW. While it's always possible he could duck in once the script is done, we need to look to the rest of the United Kingdom ... and possibly to Morgan himself, who is about to make his directorial debut with The Special Relationship.

Recreating well-known political figures has been pretty popular lately. We've had the surprising casting twist of Josh Brolin as Dubya, plus a whole slew of other political figures in W. We've seen Paul Giamatti become a Founding Father. Frank Langella got to take on good ol' Nixon. And now, we're getting Bill and Hillary, and the famous Clinton duo is not being played by Darrell Hammond and Amy Poehler. It's a pair you'd probably never guess.

Variety reports that Dennis Quaid is set to star as President Clinton, with Julianne Moore taking on Hillary in an upcoming HBO film called The Special Relationship. While, at first glance, this might seem like a tale that will discuss certain forays in the Oval Office and risque behavior with cigars, the piece will look at an entirely different relationship -- the "sometimes turbulent political relationship" between Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- who will be played by Michael Sheen.

You might remember that Sheen already played Blair in both The Deal and The Queen, so this will be old hat. (Helen McCrory, who played Cherie Blair in The Queen, is also set to reprise her role.) He was also the Frost to Langella's Nixon, and Frost/Nixon playwright Peter Morgan wrote the screenplay to this project and is hoping to make his directorial debut with the feature, should it get greenlit.
Can you imagine Dennis and Julianne as Bill and Hillary?

Okay, so the Monsters vs. Aliens and My Life in Ruins trailers may have been leaked and subsequently pulled earlier this week, as was the case with certain awards contender Frost/Nixon, but now we can offer up the trailer straight-up, fully legit, by way of Yahoo! Movies.

The incongruous song selections aside (honestly, though: going from "Baba O'Riley" for the sake of nostalgia to Clint Mansell's wondrous score from The Fountain for the sake of drama in a matter of minutes just distracts me), I have little reason to think that this won't deliver on its considerable stage pedigree.

Frank Langella won a Tony Award for his portrayal of disgraced prez Richard Nixon, and as British talk show host David Frost, Michael Sheen looks to tap into that same sense of dignity under pressure that served him so well as Tony Blair in The Queen. It doesn't hurt that both political dramas share the same writer, and it also doesn't hurt that this looks to be the punchiest thing that Ron Howard has directed in quite some time.

Landing smack-dab in the middle of the Oscar drama blitz, Frost/Nixon should open in select cities on December 5th and will expand through Christmas.

When Stephen Frears' The Queen came out in 2006, all the buzz emphasized Helen Mirren's icy performance as London's reclusive royal highness. The ubiquitous praise lead to her Oscar win, but it overwhelmed recognition of the movie's secret weapon: Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, quietly pressuring his Majesty to face the public in the wake of Princess Diana's untimely demise. There's a reason why Sheen conveyed the nuances of Blair's role in the event, which transpired a mere three months after the Prime Minister rose to power -- he had practice. The Deal, a fantastic made-for-TV movie Frears directed in 2003, tracked Blair's cunning (and morally questionable) instincts in the years leading up to his position at the top of the Labor Party.

Sheen played Blair in The Deal first, and it's both a superior performance and a superior film. Whereas The Queen had a tabloid hook and only tangentially explored the deeper political ramifications of a reclusive national leader, The Deal delves into precisely how Blair managed to emerge at the top of British politics with a series of calculated maneuvers. Political drama at its finest, The Deal hit DVD in the United States last month, where it has been touted as "the prequel to The Queen." That's not quite fair; The Queen is the sequel to The Deal, and the two movies ought to be seen as a single, wholly fascinating package depicting British politics in the 1990s.

For those of you who are hard-core soccer fans, this new feature should come as a treat. Variety reports that Sony Pictures Entertainment has picked up the rights to a new biopic on English soccer coach Brian Clough called The Damned United. John Adams director Tom Hooper is helming the feature, from a script by Peter Morgan. You might recognize Morgan's name from films like, oh, The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Frost/Nixon.

But there's also a great cast attached to the flick. We've got Michael Sheen, who was excellent in his portrayal of Art Honeyman in Music Within, playing Clough, while Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, and Colm Meaney take on other parts that haven't been divulged. The film is based on the novel from Dave Peace, and will be set in 1974, but flash back to the '60s to tell the story of "Clough's ill-fated 44-day reign as coach of Leeds United, then one of England's most successful soccer teams." From what I can discern, he came in, criticized how the team played, alienated some of the team's star players, led his team to a one and six record, and then got sacked.

I'm far from a big soccer fan, so I have no idea how these things whip up into an interesting feature, but I would be surprised if this wasn't a solid film, considering the talent involved. But what about you fans out there? Is this a story meant for the big screen?

When I first saw the headline, I thought Marc Forster was remaking the 1995 Pauly Shore classic. But no, fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your position), he is sticking to more serious fare. According to Variety, the director of such melodramatic films as Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland is now attached to an adaptation/remake of the British miniseries The Jury, which first aired in 2002. The original, written by The Queen's Peter Morgan and directed by Pete Travis, is about a murder trial involving a Sikh student charged with killing a classmate. Like a modern, more expansive version of 12 Angry Men, the miniseries focuses primarily on the members of the jury and the process through which they reach their verdict -- though apparently (I haven't seen the miniseries), The Jury bears no resemblance at all to Reginald Rose's play nor either of the films it spawned.

Rather than hiring Morgan to rewrite his own script -- the Oscar-nominee is pretty busy these days -- Fox 2000 has gone with Beau Willimon, who Forster himself recruited based on the playwright's well-received political drama Farragut North. While it seems that Willimon is inexperienced in writing for film, he presumably has a lot of time to work on The Jury, since Forster will next be directing the latest installment of the 007 franchise, tentatively known as "Bond 22". Whenever The Jury gets made, we should expect that it will follow in the tradition of other UK minis-turned-features like Traffic and the currently-in-production State of Play. It will probably have a cast of heavies and a lot of Oscar promise.

"This summer...hold on to your crown...The Queen rules again bitches!" Yes, Variety is reporting that writer Peter Morgan is working on a follow-up to last year's Oscar-winning hit, The Queen. The Queen was a very British story, but this time he's bringing America into the mix, specifically Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The new film will deal with their relationships to Prime Minster Tony Blair (played wonderfully in The Queen by Michael Sheen, who is expected to return for the sequel). The film "will focus on Blair's reaction to the handover of power between Clinton, a natural liberal ally, and Bush, who came from the other end of the political spectrum." The project will actually be the third in Morgan's series of films about Blair, which began with the Channel 4 telepic The Deal.

The most intriguing aspect of this film might just be its casting. Who can effectively capture the good old boy charisma and charm of Bill Clinton? John Travolta did a very nice job playing a highly Clintonesque character in Primary Colors. I sure wish Phil Hartman was still alive (for a variety of reasons), I don't think anyone's nailed Clinton better, and I always sensed Hartman could have easily handled drama. Who can get across the thick layer of bluster, blind confidence, and -- what's a nice word? -- naivete present in a George W. Bush speech? Something tells me they won't go the Will Ferrell route. My pick for Dubya would be the great William H. Macy, he's got the "shifty dude whose world is crumbling around him" thing down pat. What do you guys think? Assuming they don't go with unknowns, who would you cast as two of the most recognizable figures in politics -- Bush and Clinton?

This Frost/Nixon is turning into the "character actor" event of 2008. All they need is Steve Buscemi! The cast includes Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones, Matthew Macfadyen, and now the great Oliver Platt is on board as Bob Zelnick. Zelnick was the executive editor of the Frost/Nixon interviews. Ron Howard is directing the film, Peter Morgan (writer of Oscar bait The Queen and The Last King of Scotland) is adapting his Broadway play, which is a dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate interviews between British talk show host David Frost (played by Sheen) and former President Richard Nixon (played by Langella). Sheen and Langella will reprise their stage roles, Langella just won a Tony award for his performance.

I'm a big Oliver Platt fan, he's a welcome addition to just about any movie. I remained supportive even through the 1999-2000 "dark period" when he appeared in pretty much every bad film released, including the jaw-droppingly terrible trifecta of Bicentennial Man, Gun Shy, and Ready to Rumble. Today brings two bits of Platt casting news -- you television fans will be pleased to learn that he has also just been cast in a recurring role on the FX drama Nip/Tuck (Apparently he's only appearing in works with slashes in the title these days). Platt will appear in five episodes as "Freddy Prune, the producer of a TV show on which Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) serve as consultants," Remember, the boys are in Hollywood this season. Nip/Tuck (a guilty pleasure if ever there was one) is a favorite of mine, and I'm very interested in the Frost/Nixon subject matter, so this is a good time to be an Oliver Platt enthusiast.

It might be the strangest description I've ever heard, but right now they're calling this one "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid meets Snow White." Apparently, a new book about Princess Diana was all the rage in Cannes last week, sparking an all-out, balls-to-the-wall bidding war with plenty of folks (including Paramount, who is said to be "desperate for the rights") itching for some of what got Helen Mirren that Oscar. Diana and the Paparazzi, according to its cover, reveals "the true stories we have never dared tell, until now ... " Dun Dun Dun! And, as the title of this post suggests, Keira Knightley's name is currently circling atop everyone's wishlist. That said, this is tough ground to cover as it's so easy to fall into made-for-TV territory; a fear a lot of critics (including me) had when first sitting down to watch The Queen. Thus, pic's cast will depend heavily upon who ultimately ends up with the rights, as well as who decides to step behind the camera.

The only one talking the film up to the press has been producer Quentin Reynolds, whose only producing credit to date was as an exec producer on the ultra campy horror flick Evil Aliens. Um, yeah. Said to be among those bidding for the project, Reynolds notes: "Already the word in Hollywood is 'get Knightley!' It's a story that has everything; pathos, tragedy, comedy, adventure ... and Princess Diana. For every pound The Queen makes, a film about Diana would make 10." Really? I don't know if I'd go that far; The Queen made most of its money based off Mirren's Oscar-winning performance. Sure, Peter Morgan's script was exceptional and Stephen Frears always does good work behind the camera, but Mirren enticed people into buying tickets. In order for Diana and the Paparazzi to do the same, it would have to include Knightley (or someone of her caliber). End of story. But even with Knightley, do we even want another Diane-esque soap opera to hit the big screen? Maybe this kind of stuff is like crack for those across the pond, but here in the states the subject is beginning to feel a little played out. What do you think?

I don't know about you, but I just couldn't see Warren Beatty playing Richard Nixon. Fortunately he won't be, but for some reason he was almost cast as the former U.S. President in Ron Howard's next project, Frost/Nixon. If you think it would have been a good idea, then maybe you should write up a script about the Nixon and Kennedy debates -- and if you get Beatty to play Tricky Dick, then maybe you can get Leonardo DiCaprio to play JFK.

Apparently now that Beatty is no longer in talks for Howard's film, which you may recall is based on the play by Peter Morgan, a more proper choice for the role is being considered. Frank Langella, who played the part on stage, is in negotiations to reprise his performance for the screen. The casting of Langella will certainly make more sense than the casting of Beatty, because the play's other star, Michael Sheen, has also been in talks to reprise his own role, as television interviewer David Frost.

Langella should have been considered from the beginning, but obviously he isn't a big enough star for Hollywood to think of right away, despite all the acclaim he received for his work in the play. So as payback, I hope the actor, who long, long ago was nominated for a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer (he lost to James Earl Jones), not only gets the part, but also wins some awards for playing it. I'm surprised that Hollywood still continues to pass over great stage actors for more well-known names when a play is turned into a film. They should have learned 40 years ago with the whole Julie Andrews-My Fair Lady thing.