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West Wing creator and An American President scribe Aaron Sorkin will make his feature directorial debut on a drama that chronicles the scandalous implosion of Senator John Edwards’ 2008 run to be the Democratic presidential candidate. It ended shockingly when a tabloid newspaper revealed that the married senator had fathered an illegitimate child with Rielle Hunter — a claim Edwards denied, denied, denied, and then finally admitted, much to the amazement of his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth who was blindsided. Sorkin has optioned The Politician, the book by one-time Edwards aide Andrew Young that was published last January by Thomas Dunne Books.
“This is a first hand account of an extraordinary story filled with motivations, decisions and consequences that would have lit Shakespeare up,” Sorkin said in a statement. “There is much more to Andrew’s book than what has been reported and I am grateful that he’s trusting me with it.” Sorkin is no stranger to the political arena with credits that also include A Few Good Men and Charlie Wilson’s War. Sorkin optioned the project on his own and hasn’t yet involved a studio. He’ll write the script and produce the film in a deal just closed by WME and his attorney Richard Heller. Sorkin is coming off two high-profile scripting jobs: the David Fincher-directed The Social Network, which opens October 1, and Moneyball, an adaptation of the Michael Lewis book that is about to begin production with Bennett Miller directing and Brad Pitt starring. Both are Sony Pictures’ projects.
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My choice to play Edwards: Jason Sudeikis
Simply put, this is not true. Is Sorkin spoonfeeding this crap to hype the movie, or has the crack use pitted his memory? Edwards was already out of the running when the Enquirer broke the news. He had already been in the process of bargaining the few delegates he had won in exchange for another VP nomination, which he would never have gotten anyway.
Great line by Sorkin though to say there’s much more in the book than was reported in the media. Yeah right, because the media tend to ignore the important stuff in these tell-all tomes and go with the unimportant dross.
Nikki, what I love about you is that you’re the only person in Hollywoodland who usually pushes this flackery to the side and points it out for the ridiculous hype that it is. What happened here?
On the plus side for this project though, Sorkin clearly knows what it’s like to be a self-centered scumbucket who’s wiling to throw his own family under the bus to get what he wants, even if that family contains young children. Here’s hoping “It takes one to know one” results in a good movie.
Wow, unnecessarily vicious attack on Sorkin that might lead someone to assume you know more about him personally than you actually do. He didn’t throw his family under a bus, but why not make the claim? Saying something nice (and true) would be too easy.
I had to smile at the vitriol. You committed a murder there.
Actually, that’s not accurate. Mickey Kaus was already picking up the Enquirer story before Iowa, a time when Edwards was on the cover of Newsweek. You might be confusing the Edwards caught holding the child story at hte Beverly Hilton — which DID happen after Edwards was no longer in the race — with the original Enquirer story of the affair.
Thanks for the clarification, Mickey. You should know as the one guy who ran a more embarrassing campaign this century than Edwards.
Whether or not Mickey Kaus picked this up before Iowa is irrelevant (as is Mickey Kaus). The story says the scandal caused his campaign to implode, which is dead wrong. If a tiny handful of politicos were whispering stuff early on, who cares? By the time the story got any traction whatsoever the Edwards campaign was long dead.
They sure got the right guy for this gig … but these ripped from the recent headlines stories are tough to pull off. Do it wrong and it feels like a quickie Made-for-TV ripoff.
Sounds like a Lifetime Movie. Dumb politicians aren’t very interesting but I guess they’re banking on the interest in the book. Feeling more and more like a tax write off if you ask me.
Yech! It’s bad enough we had to witness this unfortunate, sordid mess in real life does Sorkin really believe that there exists an audience that wants to watch all this dirty laundry hung up again.
Spare us Please!
Simply put, it’s a fascinating story and Sorkin is a skilled writer of both personal and political material. As a fan, I’m glad he’s stepped away from television and is getting into some darker material.
Sorkin has had well-documented addiction issues, but to call him a “self-centered scumbucket” seems off-base. On the few occassions where Aaron writes about himself and his work, his comments are open, ironic and self-depreciating.
Based on recent on-line behavior, I also suspect some of these posters are friends or members of the Edwards family. You guys might want to STFU on this one. If you dislike him now, you’ll really hate Aaron Sorkin when he’s angry.
And Elizabeth, Nikki was being too kind to you. Nobody believes you were “blind-sided.”
One of the greatest days ever is when Sorkin started writing for television! How can you say your glad he stopped writing television? Last season on TV there was only one truely good TV show which was Glee! Thank god that David E. Kelley is FINALLY coming back on the scene with Harry Law. Truly smart TV is no longer a reality for the most part except for animated satire where Kelley hangs in the balence of amazing drama and animated satire, but that is what makes him great. Sorkin relies on clever wit, brilliant dialage, and a fun look inside things. I still havn’t got over the tragedy of Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip being taken off the air. Enormously ironic as it was a show about putting quality program on the airways and the network removed Studio 60 from the airways. Same irony as sportsnight actually. It doesn’t even matter what the plot is although obviously West Wing was by far the best and most facinating story line. I’ll watch any Sorkin movie and i’m frankly glad hes making movies again although i wish he would make the Leo Farnsworth play into a movie. I would be happy to watch the full video of the stage play. As for the politian, i’m sure it will be great as it is right in Sorkins wheel house. Don’t worry about the morons comment about Sorkin being a scumbucket. The ignorant always make false inferances about addiction and always will, but i’m sure that Sorkin’s writing has helped as he has always presented enlightend views about addiction. Many West Wing episodes debated treatment over prison. Leo McGarry (West Wing) or Danny (Studio 60) were both addicts. But ignorant people will always be around over the issue of drugs. The biggoted Christian right has probably labled Sorkin as well, but everyone knows the two most dangerous religions to the world is Christianity and Muslamic. So they both will probably villify Sorkin for exposing them for thier terror. So you really don’t need to come to Sorkin’s defence, their are plenty of intelligent people that understand him just fine.
I think it could be damn smart and interesting, if uncommercial, and Sorkin at his best can pull it off and make it say something. So I applaud him for trying.
(By the way, am I the only one starting to feel, more and more often after I look at this site’s comment pages, like I need a shower?)
I actually would pay money to see this. And I say that as someone who seriously considered supporting Edwards for President two years ago. Well, OK, make that 2 1/2 years ago.
I’d like to see Brian De Palma’s TABLOID get made– it involves a John Edwards-type political scandal and a serial killer.
What was so shocking about Edwards was that he didn’t get out of the campaign because of his affair. If he hadn’t lost primaries and dropped out in January he would have still been in the race when she had the baby in February. I really followed that election but I didn’t know the National Enquirer had written about his affair months before the primaries because the regular press didn’t look into it. Later he was even under consideration to be Obama’s vice president. How could anybody be so reckless as to keep running for president when the National Enquirer had the story and she was about to have the baby? That someone that delusional about his prospects got that close to being the Democratic presidential or vice presidential nominee is amazing enough, the filmmakers don’t have to screw up the timeline to make it more dramatic. Hope it focuses on the press’s role, some news organizations that are supposedly all about politics didn’t inform the public about this guy at all.
Pathetic man has a pathetic affair with a pathetic woman. I’ll pass thanks.
Exactly. Who wants to see this garbage.
I remember during the strike, he came by the picket line, climbed on a chunk of concrete, and stuck his nose in the air. He loved the adulation. Never looked down at the “little people” around. What an egomaniac, is all I could think seeing this spectacle.
I’m sure this will be a whitewash. Edwards being portrayed as a good and noble man who fell victim to seduction and weakness. Everyone knows he’s a vain sleazebag ambulance chaser who talked about “two americas” while living in his mansion and cheating on his terminally ill wife.
Sorkin is probably the only person actually interested in seeing this. I’ll take a documentary on a subject over a biopic every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
They should get Jack McBrayer (Kenneth The Page from 30 Rock) to play Edwards.
Whoever invests in this movie will be throwing money away. Just like the dumb suckers – including me – who contributed to an Edwards campaign.
If Sorkin wants to tell a story of extreme pathological behavior, he should turn the camera on himself. I’d be interested to learn how he got away with traveling with serious drugs and juggling his undercover affairs.
I predict Maureen Dowd will devote four columns to the movie once it comes out!
WHO WANTS TO SEE THIS MOVIE?
Seriously, how many people are out there to justify spending more than $3 million on this thing?
WHO GIVES A SHIT?
HBO movie…MAYBE…if anything.
Oh, wait, I forgot about the huge grosses that movies like Primary Colors and W generated. Notice how “An American President” did well at the box-office and it was a FICTIONAL politician.
If anyone really cared about John Edwards; i.e., he had a huge enough base to justify a major studio release, then he would have become the V.P. or the Democratic candidate.
Just send it straight to video, and can we please stop with the biopics about subjects that are only a few years old? Hollywood, please institute a 10 YEAR RULE on biopics.
And btw, by the way they’re marketing The Social Network it looks like Schindler’s Frickin’ List. It’s Facebook, ferchrissakes. It’s a website. And I can rattle off the beats of this familiar “rise and fall of young hotshot” story in my head: How long before the montage of the young guys in Vegas throwing money in the air, surrounded by strippers, with the V.O. saying “We had it all.” SMASH CUT to the protag. face down in a toilet — he wakes up, hung over, stumbles out into the living room of the penthouse suite to find naked models and his college buddies strewn about the place. Coke strewn on the table, a chick with a syringe still in her arm, and…his best buddy’s corpse is laying there, blue. Protag to the sky: “Nooooooooo!” Cut to the montage of the court case with ultra-Sorkin dialogue from some real smarty-pants lawyers and reporters comparing it to Watergate and Monica-gate or some other kind of gate that dominates the sushi conversation amongst Sorkin and his cronies.
Sorkin: please retire. The 90s are over, and so is your relevance.
I agree with you. He is needed in television not big screens. When he came to TV it was amazing. West Wing broght the big screen in the living room. I couldn’t believe a show this good was on TV and made by big screen people like Sorkin. For TV watchers it was a dream come true. He needs to retire from making movies and come back and make television shows. Excellent post!
i was not allowed to watch tv growing up and consequently find most of the three blind mice’s programming irrelevant, unapetizing and bland. Sorkin’s West Wing and Studio Sixty actual got me back to the boob tube. His movies to date are good, but not awesome. Can Edwards be made interesting or relevant? How many immoral, clueless, american male stories have saturated the tabloids… I for one want to continue to watch the redemptif motif. I really can’t stand the American perpetual adolescent male, and altho I am a true Sorkin admirer, I think he is wasting both time and money. Unless Sorkin is on the cutting edge. Like holistic ideas about dis-ease: Cancer is a dis-ease about bittnerness and relationship issues…. If he makes a movie about deceipt that has some relevance on our real lives then maybe we’ll watch it… He certainly does often get it right… Well I am on the fence…Time will tell.
First off, the real story is how the LAT refused to cover the story, with a memo forbidding it (“Keep Rockin”) that was leaked by outraged reporters. The reason — to prevent the scandal from making Dems look bad. It showed the partisan, Democrat nature of the Press. The National Enquirer did more fearless reporting than the LAT, particularly early when Edwards was still viable, before the first primaries.
Second, the movie is bound to be a failure. Because its in the tabloids for free (just read the headlines at the supermarket checkout counter) every week. No one cares. Its not a compelling story. Edwards was a sleaze (this was hardly his only bimbo), who attracted fellow sleazy folks, his aides enablers, his wife turning a blind eye and enabling the cover-up to keep his candidacy on life support.
But its been exhaustively covered in the tabloids. Its like making a movie with Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag. Sure they are in the tabloids, but who’d pay to see them?
Aaron Sorkin is the only one who could make this shit interesting. The man writes like a God (The West Wing, anyone?) and he has that stroke of genius this story needs.
I want Dennis Quaid for weasly Edwards, Annette Bening as crazy Elizabeth and Anne Heche as kooky Rielle!
Ugh, such talent for such awful ideas. Who is his target demographic here?? Middle-aged women who watch too much Nancy Grace? No one wants to see this. No one wants to see a movie about facebook. What a waste.
Again I do think any movie is a waste of Sorkin’s talents, he needs to come to TV. But Social Network is going to be like Pirates of the Silicon Valley but better with Sorkin writing a similiar tale.
Give Aaron credit — he’s at least trying to write movies for adults, compared to all the stuff being made for the 13 year old sensibility. When Universal announces that they won’t do any dramas anymore other than thrillers, and even then… It’s a shitty time in the business, and my hats off to a guy who is still daring to think that when it comes to movies and shows about adults and adult themes, if you built it, they will come.
There are plenty of smart films out there still, how many smart shows do you see? He belongs on television. Warner bros were idiots for fireing him from West Wing and NBC were idiots for cancelling studio 60. I want something to watch on TV! Believe it or not even a Pixar Cartoon is pretty smart and in many instances actually more for adults than children. Martin Scorsese is very active still. Your not going to say that Avatar is dumb are you, even if it borrows from many films, the planet details were brilliant as is the culture of the pendorian people. Don’t forget with Sorkin its the little things that count as well. When the West Wing fell off a ledge after Sorkin left it wasn’t the plots that were nesisarily the problem, but really it was the dialog that was the problem. Borat isn’t that old of a movie and was brilliant satire. TV has been Boston Legal(cancelled), Glee, and what else? Finally Harry Law is coming this upcoming season, but you have to admit that a Arron Sorkin show would be a big help to TV lineups. Drama wise tv has little to offer. After Kelly and Sorkin there is only animated satire for smart tv.