December 16, 2008

Morgan and Sheen Bringing Back Blair...

seems like they're going for the trifecta, as per this article in Variety:
"Frost/Nixon" playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan is lining up his directorial debut, a film that would be the third movie in the Tony Blair trilogy launched in 2003 by Stephen Frears' British TV movie "The Deal" and followed by "The Queen."
"Deal" tracked the rise of Tony Blair, played by Michael Sheen. Frears and Sheen then reteamed for "The Queen," which also starred Helen Mirren in her Oscar-winning turn. Morgan earned an Oscar nom for best original screenplay on the pic as well.
The third movie, tentatively titled "The Special Relationship," will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy and will again star "Frost/Nixon" thesp Sheen as Tony Blair.
Morgan initially planned to focus the pic on George W. Bush as well as Bill Clinton, but decided to narrow its scope to the intimate relationship between Blair and Clinton between 1997 and 2000. The writer researched the picture in Washington, D.C., and Little Rock, Ark., last summer.
One prospective home for the trilogy's final chapter could be DreamWorks, where Kennedy set up Morgan's script "Hereafter" for Clint Eastwood to direct.
The prolific Morgan also wrote Tom Hooper's upcoming "The Damned United," which also stars Sheen as legendary English soccer coach Brian Clough; Universal-Working Title's remake of the Brit miniseries "State of Play," starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck; and a pending adaptation of John le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" for Working Title.
-Very cool

3 comments:

  1. "State of Play" is looking excellent!

    ReplyDelete
  2. State of Play should be terrific — check out the original BBC show if you can't wait for the movie. I was lucky enough to see Morgan on stage at the London Film Festival in October — you can see my analysis of his work to date at www.mastersvo.com. Best wishes JW

    ReplyDelete
  3. definitely looking forward to both this and State of Play

    ReplyDelete