Tell me if this movie doesn't have "bomb" written all over it. First of all it is being written by Aaron Sorkin. Secondly it is being produced by George Clooney. Finally, the movie theme has BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) at its center. Is this not the perfect formula for yet another leftwing movie that is destined to die at the box office? How long before Hollywood finally figures out that such movies are always doomed to fail bigtime?
The most recent such box office failure of a leftwing film is "Che" which so far has grossed a grand total of only a million bucks. Perhaps the producers knew in advance that this flick would be a bomb which is why it is already available on Pay-Per-View. Remember Oliver Stone's "W?" If you have forgotten it even existed, that is because it died a quick death at the box office immediately upon release last October.
Both of these movies suffered exactly the same fate as all the other leftwing movies produced in the past few years by Hollywood. "Redacted?" DEAD! "Rendition?" DEAD! "Syriana?" DEAD! "Stop Loss?" DEAD! And on and on and on it goes. So do you think Hollywood has finally learned its lesson? According to Variety, the answer is no:
Warner Bros. has set Aaron Sorkin to write "The Challenge," a courtroom drama for George Clooney's Smoke House shingle.
Clooney is producing with Smoke House partner Grant Heslov. Clooney may direct and hopes to play Navy lawyer Charles Swift in the drama about the effort by Swift and Georgetown U. law professor Neal Katyal to ensure a fair trial for Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, who'd been held at Guantanamo Bay for five years.
WB and Smoke House got started on the project over the summer by optioning Jonathan Mahler book "The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power"
The courtroom drama wouldn't debate Hamdan's guilt or innocence but chart the dogged efforts of the two lawyers who sue the president because they feel the U.S. government has broken the law and violated the Constitution.
Captured in 2001 in Afghanistan while transporting two missiles in a car, Hamdan was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 5½ years by a military commission for providing material support to Al-Qaeda. He was cleared of the terrorism conspiracy charges that would have drawn a much longer sentence.
It sounds like the perfect formula for box office failure. And yet Hollywood will probably not learn the lesson even after "The Challenge" flops bigtime as it inevitably will. There is sure to be a scene in some Hollywood producer's office. An earnest promoter will be pitching a project called, say, "Gitmo," about the the supposed abuse and torture of the prisoners in Guantanamo by air conditioning and overfeeding. As a kicker the promoter will proclaim, "Hey, the script was written by Aaron Sorkin with George Clooney producing. Plus the camp commandant will be played by Matt Damon. It can't fail!"
But it will.
