Sunday
17Aug2008
Paul Greengrass Not Directing 'Chicago 7'
Sunday, August 17, 2008 at 6:48PM 
It seems it was too good to be true. Last week, we were
very excited about the prospect of
Paul Greengrass directing
The Trial of the Chicago 7, taking over the
political drama for
Steven Spielberg, who is still producing the
film.
Devin Faraci at CHUD sees eye-to-eye with me on
this subject: "If you had to name a director perfectly suited to this material,
it would be Paul," Faraci proclaims at CHUD. But he had the inside track. Faraci e-mailed Greengrass,
who said he thought it was a "wonderful project," but because of the film's
schedule and his own, it simply wasn't going to work. (Word has it Greengrass is
playing a Nazi hunter in Inglorious Bastards instead. OK, not really. But how unsurprising would it really be at this point?)
Greengrass does high politics and high drama as well as any
director out there, and despite being British, his very American trio of The
Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum and United 93 is about the best
trio of mainstream films of their kind in a long time. He's currently working on
another film in a similar vein,
The Green Zone, which will star his Jason
Bourne, Matt Damon.Perhaps the flurry of heavy
dramas thick with politics has something to do with him passing on Chicago 7,
although
Cinematical questions whether or not the
fourth Bourne movie might not have Greengrass'
eye instead. It's hard to believe, though, that Spielberg's
Chicago 7 is a film you don't hurry into production. In fact, it probably
should have come out this year, if there had been enough foresight. After all,
2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the notorious Democratic National Convention
in Chicago, which sparked the riots and protests that led to the events to be
depicted in the film. Certainly, it makes more sense to release this film on the
eve of the most important election since 1968 rather than next year, or possibly
all the way out to 2011.Still, with a cast
rumored at various times this year to include
Will Smith,
Sacha Baron Cohen,
Kevin Spacey, and others, this isn't a project
that can sit on the shelf very long. Soon enough, the cast will find other
things to do, too. And then where will we be? Perhaps Spielberg should have made
this in front of Indiana Jones. Where does it go now? And with whom?
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