The first teaser ad for Oliver Stone’s biopic of George W. Bush isn’t what you would expect from the director.

Instead of a nefarious image of our current president, or a more sinister rendering of Vice President Cheney, there is a simple mimic of a dictionary entry: “W,” a noun defined as “The Improbable President,” followed by a long list of some of Bush’s great malapropisms: “They misunderestimated me.” “I can press when there needs to be pressed; I can hold hands when there needs to be … hold hands.” “I hear there’s rumors on the Internets that we’re going to have a draft.”

And on it goes …

It’s probably good that the ad for Stone’s “W” — which ran in trade publications and was aimed at drawing international distributors — wasn’t in any way pedantic. If there’s one dicey prospect at the multiplex, it’s politics in heavy doses, and the more recent the history, the worse the movies seem to do.

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”Where is George Bush’s bedroom?”

Oliver Stone is flinging open French doors inside an enormous brick mansion in Shreveport, La., inspecting locations for his new film about the 43rd President of the United States. ”This one is too small,” he says. ”This one looks like George Tenet’s bedroom. Where did we decide to put Bush’s bedroom? It’s around here somewhere, isn’t it?”

Shooting begins in less than two weeks on W (or dub-ya, as it’s spelled out in the initial sketches for the poster), but not everything is exactly where it should be, and not only here in the house where the First Family’s residence will be re-created. The 32,000-square-foot soundstage the production is renting across town stands empty, waiting for the Oval Office and Cabinet Room sets to get trucked in from Los Angeles. The screenplay still needs work too. It’s gone through two rewrites since an earlier draft leaked to the press last month (some skeptics took it as an April Fools’ joke), but Stone would still like one more pass at it (”It’s evolving,” he says). And while most of the cast has been assembled and outfitted with prosthetic noses and hairpieces — Josh Brolin will play President George W. Bush and Elizabeth Banks will star as Laura — there is one major character still in search of an actor: a heavy named Dick Cheney.

Stone is famous for courting controversy with dramas like JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995). But with W, the 61-year-old filmmaker isn’t merely courting it — he’s grabbing controversy by the lapels and giving it a big wet smacker. For the first time, he’s turning his cameras not just on a living president but on one who’ll still be knocking around the White House when the movie premieres late this year. As if that weren’t provocative enough, Stone could end up releasing the film as early as October, at the height of a presidential campaign in which one of the major issues will undoubtedly be the legacy of the guy on the screen. The movie has become a lightning rod before Stone has shot a single frame. If that bootlegged script is any indication, the film will feature such flag-waving moments as the Commander-in-Chief nearly choking to death on a pretzel while watching football on TV and a flashback of him singing the ”Whiffenpoof” song as a frat pledge at Yale, not to mention scenes in which he refers to his advisers by dorky nicknames — ”Guru” for Condoleezza Rice, ”Turdblossom” for Karl Rove, ”Balloon Foot” for Colin Powell — while discussing plans for the invasion of Iraq with the coolness of a late-night poker game.

Stone has publicly promised W will be a ”fair, true portrait of the man,” but already there are those accusing him of the politics of personal destruction — and, worse, of trying to influence the election by painting the current Republican administration as reckless doofuses (although presumptive Republican nominee John McCain makes no appearance in the script). Naturally, Stone vehemently denies all charges. ”Bush may turn out to be the worst president in history,” he declares as he peeks into room after room. ”I think history is going to be very tough on him. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a great story. It’s almost Capra-esque, the story of a guy who had very limited talents in life, except for the ability to sell himself. The fact that he had to overcome the shadow of his father and the weight of his family name — you have to admire his tenacity. There’s almost an Andy Griffith quality to him, from A Face in the Crowd. If Fitzgerald were alive today, he might be writing about him. He’s sort of a reverse Gatsby.”

As it happens, Oliver Stone went to school with George W. Bush. They both attended Yale in the mid-1960s — until Stone dropped out and served in Vietnam — although they didn’t mix in the same circles. ”If I met him there, I don’t remember,” Stone says. ”But I do remember John Kerry. He was big man on campus, head of the Political Union. I definitely remember him.” Thirty years later, in 1998, Stone had a closer encounter with then governor Bush at a Republican breakfast. ”I don’t usually go to breakfast with anybody,” he says, ”but I wanted to prove that even though people thought I was a leftist I wanted to hear what they had to say. It was funny, though — the minute I walked in the room the sound of the silverware kind of died. People were like, ‘What’s he doing here? Satan has walked in.”’ He laughs. ”But I met George Bush and I remember thinking that this man was going to be president. There was just a confidence and enthusiasm I’d never seen in a candidate before, especially in a Republican.”

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History will provide many interpretations of George W. Bush, his life & times. Here comes the cinematic version. Oliver Stone, a three-time Academy Award winning film director and screenwriter, is making a film on President George W. Bush (simply called W) and would be shot in Louisiana. Bush experts have already begun to dissect the screenplay.

W would come as a farewell gift to Mr Bush who could view it from the comfort of the White House before he leaves office next January. This is Stone’s third film about a US president, following Nixon and JFK.

“The director has been an outspoken critic of President Bush’s policy in Iraq. Mr Bush will be played by Josh Brolin (see photo above), who starred in the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. Laura Bush is being played by Elizabeth Banks, who starred in The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” reports The Independent.

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Q. Is it true that Oliver Stone is making a movie about the presidency of George W. Bush? - N.F.

A. No; Stone, who has ventured into presidential films before with JFK and Nixon, is making a film about Bush, but it’s about his formative years, not his presidential ones. Josh Brolin has been chosen to portray W., with Elizabeth Banks as Laura, Ellen Burstyn as his mother, Barbara, and James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush. The film starts shooting later this month, and Stone has promised to have it in theaters in time for the election.

From Journal Now

The New Republic is reporting that W. will begin production on April 21st. Earlier reports are stating that the film will be shot in Louisiana. You can check out the complete article below.

W, the highly-anticipated Oliver Stone biopic on America’s 43rd president, has been making a slow march toward its April 21st production start date. Josh Brolin (a dead ringer who can act!) has been slated to play Dubya for months, but in recent weeks, producers have continued to flesh out the cast list. Ellen Burstyn and James Cromwell, of Requiem for a Dream and Babe, respectively, are slated to play Barbara and George H.W. Bush. Thandie Newton of Crash and Elizabeth Banks of…uh…will play Condi Rice and Laura Bush. (First thoughts: too hot!) Welshman Iaon Gruffudd is in talks to play Tony Blair, and Jeffrey Wright is being floated as Colin Powell.

ABC News and Politico, both apparently in possession of a draft copy of the screenplay, offered separate rundowns last week of the father-son dynamic that has filled pop psychology regarding Bush 43. Key scenes include the drumbeat to war in 2002, the “Mission Accomplished” landing in 2003, as well as the softer side: college-age W guzzling garbage-pail vodka; leader-of-the-free-world-age W choking on a pretzel. The tendentious Stone summed up his film in one sweep: “How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?”

Of course, the Hollywood treatment could detract from the film’s political credibility. (Judge/read the first page of the script yourself here [pdf].) But in the end, its success rests squarely with the talent. So, Talkbackers: Who are your picks for the rest of the Bush gang (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove, Powell, Chalabi, Miers–Perino)? I nominate this guy for VP.