News > Bush Biographers Split on "W."

Oliver Stone thrives on controversy and always has. His George W. Bush biopic (simply called "W.") is attracting its share of attention lately, and recently, The Hollywood Reporter, in an effort to gauge the potential accuracy of the film, sent out a copy of Stone and Stanley Weiser's script to four Bush biographers, namely Peter Schweizer (author of "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty"), Robert Draper ("Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush"), Skip Hollandsworth ("Born to Run"), and Jacob Weisberg ("The Bush Tragedy").

The results were mixed. Several noted that some of the dialogue did not accurately represent the way George W. Bush thinks or speaks ("There's this darkness that follows me …") or misrepresents his conflicts with Vice President Cheney ("Just keep your ego in check. I'm the president. I'm the decider."). The biographers generally agreed that the tone of the meetings between Bush and his chief advisers was far too flippant in the screenplay, which suggested that Bush was little more than an observer waiting for business to be over so that he could watch ESPN.

Stone wouldn't comment on the assessments of these writers. Co-writer Stanley Weiser, however, had this to say:

I have no comment other than the fact that I have read 17 books on Bush.

Producer Moritz Borman backs up the writer saying that the people involved in making "W." have done their homework. The biographers agreed, at least in theory, with the producers that factuality is a major issue. Producer Bill Block declared, "It is not going to be simplistic at all. It is powerful and not trying to be skewed to the left, but to be real. The truth is surprising and, frankly, shocking enough."

That dialogue was brutal though, right?

-David Morgan