Eastwood to direct WWII drama for Spielberg

[AKA23]

Eastwood, Spielberg Raise 'Flags'

By Borys Kit and Chris Gardner

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Clint Eastwood (news) and Steven Spielberg are teaming up to bring the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima to the big screen.

Eastwood will direct an adaptation of "Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima" for DreamWorks, the studio co-founded by Spielberg.

The battle, which took place in winter 1945, was a turning point in the Pacific theater. In one month, 22,000 Japanese and 26,000 Americans died, and the battle produced one of World War II's most enduring images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point.

One of the six was Navy corpsman John Bradley. Bradley never mentioned his experiences to his family, and it was only after his death in 1994 that his son James discovered his father's heroism. James Bradley wrote the "Flags of Our Fathers" book, which was published in 2000, with Ron Powers.

The project is the second collaboration between Spielberg and Eastwood, following 1995's "The Bridges of Madison County," which Eastwood directed and starred in and Spielberg produced through his own Amblin Entertainment banner.

The script for "Flags of Our Fathers" will be written by Paul Haggis, who is co-writing with Eastwood "The Million Dollar Baby," which Eastwood is also directing; Hilary Swank stars.

Eastwood most recently directed the Oscar-winning crime saga "Mystic River." He won Academy Awards (news - web sites) for directing and producing "Unforgiven." Spielberg is not unfamiliar with World War II, having won Oscars (news - web sites) for "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan," as well as served as an executive producer of HBO's Emmy-winning miniseries "Band of Brothers."

This is another unexpected move for Clint Eastwood. I didn't expect Million Dollar Baby and I certainly didn't expect this. For some reason, Clint seems to be very interested in historical pictures at this point in his career, if the Neil Armstrong picture and the Billie Strayhorn biography is any indication. I don't really know what to make of this film. I'm saddened that it looks as if Clint Eastwood will not be starring. It certainly will be challenging material, which could be the reason that Clint Eastwood was attracted to it. It gives him an opportunity to return to the war scene, but this time directing a real historical drama, which is something that he has never done in his career. It also looks to mark the first time Clint Eastwood will team up wtih another production company, Dreamworks, since Clint Eastwood made Absolute Power at Castlerock in 1997. I wonder why Steven Spielberg didn't want to direct this film himself, given that he has shown an interest in World War II and the historical record in the past. I really would have liked to see Clint starring again with a different kind of subject matter, so I'm not really sure what to make of this news. It will be interesting to see how this all comes together.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/040709/11/ptvd.html

[Brendan]

Eastwood and Speilberg? Wow that is completley un-expected. AKA the reason why Speilberg might not be directing this is because, maybe, his plate his full right now with a crap load of producing gigs and he's also working on his 1972 Olympics movie and the re-make for War of the Worlds. So maybe he and Clint were at some benefiet or something recently and got to talking about this and it caught Clint's eye. It's sounds interesting though, good luck to Clint.  

[KC]

According to Variety.com's subscription-only website, Eastwood is "in talks" to direct this project:

Posted: Thurs., Jul. 8, 2004, 10:00pm PT
 
Iwo Jima 'Flags' fly at D'Works
Eastwood eyes WWII project; Haggis penning script
 
By NICOLE LAPORTE
Clint Eastwood is in talks to direct an adaptation of the book "Flags of Our Fathers," by James Bradley and Ron Powers, for DreamWorks.
Paul Haggis is writing the script.

Since the story AKA posted is from The Hollywood Reporter, it will be interesting to see which of these "Show Biz Bibles" has more accurate information in this case.

Here is the direct link to the story in The Hollywood Reporter.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000566850

[philamopolis]

Here's another link:

www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=5481

[philamopolis]

Obviously Eastwood's directing and co-producing. But does anyone know or think Clint will be starring in this one? My guess is it will be a 2006 release (minimum) with production next year anyone know this for sure or have there own take on it?

Darn, I hope to see Eastwood starring in this one.

[hoorah]

The return of Gunny Highway! I really don't see how a 76 (2006) year old Clint can "star" in this one I'm afraid.  

[Agent]

This ought to be good. I've got the book, but haven't read it yet.

[vik]

hopefully he will do the western first

then direct

as would rather see him in front of the camera

[Adam S.]

This will be great!!!!!

[AKA23]

Philamopolis, I don't think there's any chance of Clint starring in this one. There's no mention of him starring and the film does seem largely centered around Iwo Jima which necessitates that the main characters be fighters in the war. There won't be any large roles for a person well into his 70's. Producing duties don't appear to have been worked out yet so it isn't yet obvious that Eastwood would produce, but he may. It will also be interesting to see how Eastwood handles this project financially, if he is in fact given producing duties, as his films tend to be made for relatively low budgets while most war films have very large budgets.    

[AKA23]

Just for an interesting little piece of information, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times had this to say on April 29, 2001:

Spielberg, who says human experience trumps human imagination, just won out in bidding over ClintEastwood to make “Flags of OurFathers,” the best seller by a son ofone of the six Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima.  

So, apparently, Eastwood's interest in this project goes back a few years. It seems likely that Spielberg had the original option for the project and was planning to do it, but, as Brendad said, he has a lot of projects in development right now and felt like he probably didn't have the time. He knew Eastwood was interested in it from before and handed it over for him to direct.

I don't happen to have a link. The article was cached and in PDF form. The original title of the article was "We've Made our Parents into the Gabbiest Generation." The above statements were the only statements related to this project.  

[KC]

This was the featured story in my local all-news radio station's "Entertainment News" segment this afternoon. It's always nice to hear Clint's name on the radio.

Also, I picked up a copy of the paper edition of Daily Variety, and the story is on the front page. So, it's big news in Hollywood.  

[AKA23]

I agree with KC, but I think big news is to be expected when not only Clint Eastwood but Steven Spielberg are involved. I think that the enormous success of Mystic River increased Eastwood's cache in Hollywood and that now people that may have allowed Unforgiven's success to fade from their memory have now put a lot of trust in Eastwood. He probably has more respect from the hollywood community now than ever before, which may have been why Spielberg felt comfortable handing this project over for Eastwood to direct. I'm not really sure I want to see a war film from Eastwood, but it looks like that's what we're going to get. Other directors can do these war movies while Eastwood does something else. There isn't really anything about this project that screams "Clint Eastwood" to me. We'll have to wait and see. It will probably be a very good film, but a very different film than we have seen before from Eastwood. I do look forward to see the cast that will be assembled for this film. I hope Clint is able to get some big name stars to commit to the project. That being said, this may be a bit premature at this stage in the game, but I woudln't be surprised if Eastwood got yet another Oscar nomination, if now a win, from this picture. The Hollywood community loves sobering war pictures and with Spielberg's involvement in the project, that can only bode well for the perception of the film within the film community.  

[shawnmcq]

This sounds like a winner!  I would love to see Clint also act in this movie, but nevertheless I am very excited indeed!
By the way...there has been a big rumor floating around Hollywood that Clint is interest in doing a remake of "The Shootist" for his last western If that is even remotely true...that would be fantastic!
Has anyone also heard this?

[KC]

By the way...there has been a big rumor floating around Hollywood that Clint is interest in doing a remake of "The Shootist" for his last western If that is even remotely true...that would be fantastic!
Has anyone also heard this?

Floating around where ... specifically? See my answer to your post in the topic you started about this.

[Gant]

This new project sounds very exciting to me cos it sounds very different from anything Clint has tackled before.. and at this stage in his career thats exactly what I want and expect.... Surprises  
 

[Adam S.]

I wonder if there's a place for Johnny Depp in this film. That would kick ass!!!!!!

[allycat]

And that rumour mill just keeps on churning...

This one is pretty interesting though, and seems to be more than just hearsay. An Eastwood-Spielberg collaboration sounds pretty exciting to me, particularly if Clint's directing! It's always good to see Clint in front of the camera but I'm sure he won't appear in this film unless a suitable role comes up. A brief cameo would be nice, however.

[vik]

johnny depp in a serious role are u kidding

and as long as the film doesn't end up like saving private ryan - 20 minutes of great cinema then the rest tom hanks sounding off  

[Adam S.]

johnny depp in a serious role are u kidding

No, but maybe they were kidding last year when he was nominated for the best actor Oscar. And what was the last Depp film you saw? Benny & Joon? Obviously not Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Secret Window, Pirates Of The Carribean, Blow, etc.