R.I.P. James Gandolfini 
Photos: James Gandolfini, 1961-2013 
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EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros is matching an iconic film subject with an iconic producer. The studio has taken over Playboy, a project about Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner, with Jerry Weintraub taking over the film as producer. The film originated at Universal with Imagine Entertainment, where the studio tried for several years to tell the story of how Hefner evolved from a puritanical upbringing to become the godfather of the sexual revolution. During that time, Hefner used the magazine to champion civil rights and free speech, putting James Brown on his show Playboy After Dark when no one put black performers on national television. While Universal had filmmakers like Brett Ratner attached at one time or another and actors like Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Jackman mentioned as possibles to play Hef, the project languished.
At Warner Bros, this marks a meeting of a couple of old style iconic guys, Hefner and Weintraub. The Ocean’s Eleven producer, who cut his teeth promoting Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan, put his own colorful life story into the memoir When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man. HBO turned it into the HBO documentary His Way.
Wentraub would not disclose what part of Hefner’s life he will cover, and he denied that Harry Potter scribe Steve Kloves is being talked to as a potential screenwriter, as I’ve heard is the conversation going on right now between the studio and the scribe. Stay tuned.
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Michael Fassbender IS Hugh Hefner! It better be the YOUNG Hugh…….don’t really want to see grandpa and his grand daughters……GROSS.
Ryan Gosling is a better choice
I laughed so hard at the AWFUL Scott Silver draft of this I thought I was going to have a stroke.
Kill it, bury it, no marker, outta Dodge.
I hope it’s not in 3D
This will be a big hit because “The Playboy Club” was a big hit for NBC viewers loved watching it they made it Must See TV and it was NBC’s first big hit of the fall season.
What? It was canceled after just three episodes?
Never mind. Onward and upward with HEF the movie.
If that doesn’t work we will try “Two and a Hef Men” as a sit-com.
Well that twain doesn’t necessarily always meet, my friend. One quick example: POLICE SQUAD tanked when it first ran on TV back in 1982 but just a few years later when it re-emerged as a feature called THE NAKED GUN it broke the bank and spawned two sequels.
The lesson here: A lack of interest in a subject portrayed in a (by all accounts terrible) TV show like PLAYBOY does not necessarily mean a lack of interest. The movie might still be good. And wildly succesful.
The studios are truly reaching a new low by developing projects that recently played on either TV or in film, for better or worse.
The Playboy Club on NBC was a HUGE bomb and all of the post-mortem reports talked about how America just wasn’t interested in the topic and time period, not to mention the brand name which just sounds sleazy. (You try telling your wife, “Hey, I’m going to DVR “The Playboy Club” and see what happens. Ditto, “Wanna go see the Hugh Hefner biopic?”)
So…they’re making a movie about it.
WB launches a big franchise with Sherlock Holmes AND the BBC has a hit TV show with the character? Let’s reboot the character for an American TV show!
There’s other recent examples of this but I might puke trying to remember them.
Bottom line — studios used to say, “No, they just did that” when they heard a pitch similar to a recent property, but now…that’s considered a GOOD THING?
Hef was a true iconoclast, back in the day.
Now he is just a pathetic old man who looks like a perv with all these young girls. It’s a complete sham. Who is buying it?
Now he licensed all the Playboy.com properties to the largest provider of online porn, Manwin, which has driven the PB sites into the ground in 2 short months.
Thanks, Maverick; I thought I was the only one who thought this about Hef.
Indeed. He was cool in the ’50 and ’60s. Now he’s just a creepy old man.
not that anyone cares, but i guess i’m not the only one who thought this was a stupid idea
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard it said that Playboy After Dark featured black performers when no one else was showing them on national television. Pretty cool, except it isn’t true. Playboy After Dark was in 1969. Black performers may not have dominated the tube, but they were still featured on many TV shows. In fact the aforementioned James Brown had been on The Ed Sullivan Show and Merv Griffin and probably other shows before being on Playboy After Dark I’ll probably go see this biopic, but Playboy After Dark was not groundbreaking in any way.
yes, but it’s still the first time anyone heard johnny mathis sing ‘age of aquarius.” so that’s good enough for me.
The first PLAYBOY AFTER DARK, actually titled PLAYBOY’S PENTHOUSE, debuted in 1959 and aired for a couple of years. THIS is the show that broke the integration barrier. PLAYBOY AFTER DARK was a revival of the series in the late 60s.
This will bomb because today’s audience has all the porn they want at their fingertips and today’s Hefners are all the guys who set up websites with any and every type of porn anyone might want. Hefner is a relic and this movie will only appeal to jerks like Brett Ratner. This should be made for HBO if it’s made at all.
Wasn’t Imagine doing a Hefner bio pic? Did Hef see the Oscars and decided to go with a younger, hotter producer? Good for Jerry and the casting couch is back!!!
Gunner Wright is Hugh Hefner.
I suspect the movie will never get made, but I also suspect that Hollywood will never stop trying.
Why?
Because Hollywood is populated with people who still think Hefner is still somehow relevant.
This is at least the 4rth attempt in the last 50 (!!) years to try and launch a Hugh Hefner biopic…the 1st had a young and trim Tony Curtis attached, so you know it was a loooong time ago.
Hefner’s story IS fascinating if you take it from when he was a frustrated worker in Esquire magazine’s circulation & promotion department. How he went about making his dream of a sophisticated and classy Men’s magazine come to be is truly inspirational and incredible. That’s where the movie should concentrate…..the pursuit of one’s dreams and how they came to fruition, wildly beyond anyone’s belief.
As a period piece, I don’t think this is a terrible idea. It could have a Mad Men type charm and really, what he did and the age in which he did it is a worthy story to tell.
fassbender wouldnt be bad aaron eckhart would be spot on.
Seriously:) …been curious about this project..& All I have to say is ADRIEN BRODY! Not only is the resemblance uncanny he would give something to the role as Huge Hefner that simply no other actor could!.. Forget about RDJ & HJ… ADRIEN BRODY as Hefner enough said!