LA Times: Hugh Jackman to tackle Martin Luther King slaying

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@HuffPost: MLK movie finds up and coming new director http://huff.to/1dqRePm

Not surprisingly it would seem that the version based on William Pepper's "Orders to Kill" is dead.

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@Variety: Jamie Foxx, Oliver Stone Eye Martin Luther King Film at DreamWorks

Given that this would be a DreamWorks production .. look for more Bobby than JFK.

[RocketMan]

I'd hate to think Oliver Stone making those kinds of compromises... But who knows how much fight he has left in him. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Savages had flashes of brilliance but overall were pedestrian.

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[RocketMan]

Oliver Stone has withdrawn from the project. He just posted this on Facebook:

The sad news is that during this interval my Martin Luther King involvement has ended. I did an extensive rewrite of the script these last few months based on Branch, Garrow bios and the more recent King histories from David Cone and Michael Eric Dyson. It went from 1965 Selma to Memphis ’68.
The producers, however, won’t go with it—they say it’s too much for them. I think it deals forthrightly but generously with issues of adultery, loss of faith, huge conflicts within the Civil Rights movement, and King’s ultimate spiritual transformation into a higher, more radical being. Coretta King, I believe, also emerges as a powerful character. It’s very different. But I’m told the estate, which has not read it, will never approve it. Nor will the ‘respectable’ black community that guards King’s reputation like chief priests on a pharaoh’s tomb. In so doing they suffocate the man and the truth.
I fear if ‘they’ ever make it, it’ll be just another Time magazine-like commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington. It’s real story, like JFK’s, has been smothered to death by a venal and superfluous media. Martin, I grieve for you. You are still a great inspiration for your fellow Americans—but, thank God, not a saint.

[JackRiddler]

So I guess Stone's departure (beautiful note, I have to say) means that in the final act Wolverine will get everyone involved in the assassination, right up to Hoover? I'd pay $14.50 to watch that!

[Grizzly]

Nor will the ‘respectable’ black community that guards King’s reputation like chief priests on a pharaoh’s tomb. In so doing they suffocate the man and the truth.

If that is true, the why the hell haven't they taken Obomba to task? Especially, when he evokes MLK in speeches...

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@HuffPost: MLK movie finds up and coming new director http://huff.to/1dqRePm

Not surprisingly it would seem that the version based on William Pepper's "Orders to Kill" is dead.

William Pepper's "Orders to Kill" has apparently morphed into "Selma" ...

Raju Narisetti ‏@raju: Would love to understand why @KingCenterATL denied @AVAETC permission to use actual MLK words for #SelmaMovie, if other than $ reasons

Which would answer Mr Narisetti's question. My guess would be that the King family would have given full backing to either the Peppers Project or the one proposed by Wesley Snipes.
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Clint Eastwood in the meantime seems to meet very little resistance in getting his wikified whitewashed versions of history made..

'Sniper' Shot Down?

Given the horrid number of Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. gunmen one has to wonder how many of the record-setting victims of his marksmanship fell into that category--though not hinted at in the film, apparently. We do see him offing a mother and child--but she has, of course, just handed the boy a bomb. The film, from the reviews, even goes so far as to suggest that the vast majority of the bad guys were "al-Qaeda" which is absurd given the al-Qaeda numbers there--but it's necessary to emphasize the revenge-for-9/11 focus. Also the film apparently does not raise questions about sniper Chris Kyle's treatment for many of the PTSD vets he tried to aid--you know, take them to a firing range for fun (which led to his death and, it must be noted, that of another man).

In the book that inspired the film Kyle bragged that he “hated the damn savages” he was fighting. He recounts telling an Army colonel, “I don’t shoot people with Korans. I’d like to, but I don’t.” A New Yorker profile called him part lawman, part "executioner." Yes, he did have some good qualities, too, in aiding vets he didn't take to rifle ranges.

Finally, here is a Washington Post piece from a few months back looking at his post-Iraq lies or exaggerations and one has to wonder about his record in the war as well. He claimed he climbed on top of the Superdome in NOLA and shot 30 bad guys from there after Katrina. Killed a couple of others or more elsewhere. Police and reporters can't find any of the dead. Claimed he punched out Jesse Ventura in a bar--while Jesse was in a wheelchair, no less--and lost a million dollar lawsuit (since affirmed a couple of times since this article) for seemingly making it all up. And so on. You won't see any of that in the Eastwood epilog.

http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/ ... -down.html

viewtopic.php?p=553696#p553696

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So the movie got shot down and both of the Hughs (Jackman & Manatee) have since gone to ground...

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