Clint Eastwood certainly is a busy man these days. After making a name for himself as an actor (notably in the Dollars trilogy as The Man With No Name), he’s recently become known for his directorial work with films like Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, and Letters From Iwo Jima.
Most recently, Eastwood made the Oscar-nominated Invictus and has just finished filming a supernatural drama entitled Hereafter with his Invictus star Matt Damon. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that after Hereafter, Eastwood is moving into the biopic genre by making a film about controversial FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover.
Eastwood is teaming up with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment on the untitled pic (he worked with them on Changeling). This Hoover biopic was initially set up at Universal – however the project isn’t in the hands of any studio at the moment. THR suggests that Warner Bros. is most likely where it’ll end up, since that’s where Eastwood’s Malpaso company is based. Robert Loren of Malpaso will serve as a producer on the biopic, along with Eastwood and Grazer. Interestingly, Oscar-winning Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black wrote the script for the biopic.
In case you’re not up on your American history, Hoover was a key figure in the founding of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (or FBI for short) back in 1935 and largely helped turn it into an efficient crime fighting organization. He remained the director of the bureau for a whopping 37 years until he died in 1972.
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
The details of what went on under his directorship is probably what drew Eastwood to the project: Hoover often employed the FBI to harass political activists and used illegal methods to collect secret files on political leaders. On a more personal level, many biographies written about Hoover claim he was a closet homosexual and cross-dresser. He was last portrayed in the Michael Mann crime drama, Public Enemies, where he was played by Watchmen‘s Billy Crudup.
A neat bit of info that THR provides actually links the real-life Hoover to Warner Bros: He was hired as a consultant on the studio’s 1959 pic, The FBI Story, and on the resulting spin-off TV series, The F.B.I. Irony, eh?…
I’m truly amazed that Eastwood is still very much in the thick of the filmmaking business. At the age of 79 (he’ll be 80 this May), most people would be enjoying their retirement – but Eastwood clearly still has a lot to offer the film world and evidently isn’t thinking about retiring anytime soon.
Hoover is certainly an interesting figure in American history and I can’t think of anyone better to make a biopic about him than the masterful Mr. Eastwood.
What do you think of the idea of a J. Edgar Hoover biopic? Is Eastwood the best director to helm it?
Source: THR
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Will they include him being a cross dresser too?
I kid, I kid.
Considering all his under handed stuff and other dastardly deeds, how long will this movie be?
And Eastwood is 80?! Goodness, I thought he was in his 60's.
From a black mans perspective, I hope they touch on his involvement in the civil rights movement and what his true feelings were about Jim Crow,segregation, john f. kennedy and the black panthers would be interesting because i believe that Clint will come with the truth…whatever that may be.
Most definetly one of the most controversial figures in American history, glad Clint Eastwood is helming this one.
“Recently become known”? Eastwood's directed virtually every film he's appeared in for forty years!
I don't know if he's the best choice, but he sure isn't the worse. Thank heavens they kept Oliver Stone away from this. I'd like to see him portrayed as a very flawed and bad man who despite his lack of morality did some worthwhile things. It's just too bad he operated in a America where he did not have to answer for his crimes. Historical figures like this always put me in quandary. The sins of men like this can never be washed away by their successes. Too bad we can't rename the Hoover building. I'm thinking David Strathairn to play Hoover.
For my money, Eastwood can direct anything he wants, the man is a film god!
For my money, Eastwood can direct anything he wants, the man is a film god!
—Too many of these postings look like they were
written by the studio!
MEANWHILE, still more of the tiredest PC ‘revisionism’
from the ‘ever earnest’, long rich, one note Eastwood
—even as millions continue to suffer and die FOR REAL
on this, the once again ‘mysteriously overlooked’
60th Anniversary of the staggeringly relevant —KOREAN WAR.
-NOT LOOKIN’ GOOD
-AMEN-
I sent Clint a book on some FBI guys about a year ago. I am an unknown Actor in VA. It cost me $30 for the book, $10 shipping. It was a great film idea. Asked to be considered for extra’s casting. You would have thought I would have at least gotten a signed headshot? That’s how it is in Hollywood I guess.
William Flynn
Fredericksburg VA
—Korea era draftee (never saw Korea but spent the entire war as a swim coach in California) —continues to pitch demoralization and ‘EUGENICS friendly’ POST American themes.
At the service of the ‘RED China friendly’ agenda, he balked the
20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, and last year 60th Anniversaries of the
awesomely relevant, ‘RED China unfriendly’ —KOREAN WAR.
BEWARE this whispery cowboy EYE-CON.
—BEWARE—
I have the greatest admiration and respect for Clint Eastwood, however, quite the opposite for J.Edgar Hoover. Hoover was a pathetic and despicable person, who was directly responsible for all the lives lost at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Hoover was informed of an attack by the Japanese by British Secret Agent, Dusko Popov, who was a flamboyant spy, similar to Ian Flemming’s, James Bond; however, he was England’s best agent. Hoover, being a homosexual and egocentric jerk ignored the warnings and threatened to arrest Popov.
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/when-%E2%80%9Cjames-bond%E2%80%9D-ran-afoul-of-the-fbi/