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The Police have been on a widely acclaimed reunion tour this year, and now it looks like a documentary about the iconic '80s rock band is in the works, thanks mainly to the efforts of guitarist Andy Summers. He published a memoir last year called One Train Later, and The Hollywood Reporter says camera crews have been filming the current tour to get footage for the doc.

The film is being produced by Bob Yari, Norm Golightly, Brett Morgen, and Nicolas Cage (?!), and Tupac: Resurrection director Lauren Lazin is in talks to direct. Apparently shooting concert footage doesn't require a director, because the producers have already taken care of it.

The plan is that Summers will narrate the film, which will tell the whole Police story from the beginning, as well as Summers' own story. (Did you know he existed before The Police? He did!) Summers is an avid photographer and has snapped some 25,000 pictures over the decades. These would be used extensively in the doc. It's not clear from the Hollywood Reporter article whether there would be new interviews with the band members or not.

I love The Police, but I'm nervous about this documentary, simply because the drummer, Stewart Copeland, already made one, and it was terrible. Called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, it premiered at Sundance in 2006. It was essentially 75 minutes of Copeland's home movies (Summers takes pictures; Copeland loves video cameras), narrated by Copeland and offering absolutely no insight whatsoever into the band. It was boring, like watching 75 minutes of anyone's home movies would be.

Hopefully One Train Later will avoid those pitfalls. They do have Sundance in mind, though: The producers hope to have the film done in time to premiere there in January 2009.

On Day 2 of Sundance 2006, our own Jason Calacanis wrote a review of Everybody Stares, a documentary by Police drummer Stewart Copeland about the band that was his life. The film was cobbled together from Copeland's home movie footage, and Jason was less than impressed. He wrote: "Documentaries rise and fall with their credibility, and this film feels as credible as a father cutting a son's football highlights in slow motion to the Chariots of Fire soundtrack. Someone should take this footage, add some objective 3rd parties commenting on The Police, and redo the voiceover to tell the real story."

That line rubbed Copeland the wrong way, and he commented on the post to let Jason know exactly how he felt.

"Yes," Copeland wrote. "That is just what it felt like to make this movie and you shouldn't be expecting anything more.  I just don't have the shots you are looking for (sex and drugs) and maybe I forgot to pick up my camera during the shouting matches...Who would care about an "objective 3rd party commentary" on The Police?  The band itself has been defunct for twenty years." Well, by that rationale, should anyone care about a non-objective Police documentary?

Check out Copeland's full comment after the jump.

Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, is a documentary about the punk/pop band derived from Super8 films shot by drummer Stewart Copeland. Sounds promising based on the level of access the director has to his subjects and the fact that the band broke up at the top of their game. After the break up fans were left with only their memories of a hard rocking Sting, who traded a kick-ass band for a life of Jazzy interludes on Light FM and sellout Jaguar commercials. In fact, sell out would be a kind assessment of Sting in the minds of most Police fans.

The film starts as the Police head out on their first US tour in the late seventies. This consists of long shots driving down the road and people cavorting in hotel rooms--nothing we haven't seen before. The voiceover from Copeland reveals little, and 40 minutes into the film I'm left wondering if anything will ever happen.

During all this time we're subjected to grainy, shaky video with horrible sound. It would be easy to forgive the poor quality of the video if it captured some rocking early performances, but the director/cameraman was too busy playing the drums at too many performance,s I guess.

Predictably the crowds develop from single digits to six figures, but the characters don't develop at all. The Police haven't said more than 20 lines to the camera 45 minutes into the film, and most surprisingly no one is taking drugs, fighting, or running around naked with groupies. Sting--who you would think would be an interesting person--has nothing to say.

Others on Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out: Variety's Dennis Harvey was decidedly unimpressed, calling the film "a trite, whitewashed-to-blankness vanity project."