Thursday
23Oct2008
Ben Stiller on the Trail of 'Chicago 7'
Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 5:39PM
Maybe they all saw something in the way he handled the
tense, touchy situations in
Tropic Thunder and thought, "Get me that
Ben Stiller!"
Whatever the logic, the rumor going 'round is that Stiller will make a jump to
drama and take over the project that
Steven
Spielberg and
Paul Greengrass couldn't or wouldn't:
The Trial of the
Chicago Seven. 
There have been so many names attached to this project in front of the camera - Will Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, and on and on - that DreamWorks would probably prefer to not have any setbacks and try to get this Aaron Sorkin-scripted film in front of cameras as soon as next year. I would think having a director on board, at the very least, would help keep the cast together, or if it's too late for that, would help DreamWorks assemble another one. But why Ben Stiller? Is he entering his "serious" phase? Hard to say, but it's worked for plenty of other comedians in the past. I will say that this feels like a reach because the studio is desperate to move forward. However, Stiller did show an ability to guide a very expensive location shoot to box office success with Tropic Thunder, so you could also ask where his career is concerned, "If not now, when?"
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