"Big Short" director Adam McKay will direct an untitled biopic about former Vice President Dick Cheney for Paramount with Brad Pitt on board to produce through his Plan B company. He is hoping to do for White House politics what "The Big Short" did for Wall Street greed.
McKay will direct from his own screenplay for Dick Cheney biopic, Variety reported. No actors have been cast yet. However, the script will go out to actors shortly.
Plan B producers Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner will again produce for Dick Cheney biopic along McKay and his Gary Sanchez partners, Will Ferrell and Kevin Messick. They collaborated on McKay's "The Big Short," which received Oscar nominations for best picture and best director. McKay and Charles Randolph won the best-adapted-screenplay Oscar for their translation of the book by Michael Lewis.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Dick Cheney biopic will chart Cheney's jump from his Chief Executive Officer position at Halliburton to his Vice President role under George H.W. Bush. He served the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Bush.
Cheney was Vice President between 2001 and 2009 under Bush. He was at the center of foreign policy as that administration pursued post-9/11 wars on global terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq along with enhanced interrogation programs like waterboarding against suspected terrorists.
In 2006, Cheney shot a 78-year-old Texas attorney, while participating in a quail hunt. He has published two memoirs since leaving office and remained a strident critic of President Barack Obama. Often likened to Darth Vader, he is one of the most enigmatic figures in recent political memory.
McKay adds the Dick Cheney biopic to his slate of socially relevant projects. He penned and directed the drama feature "Bad Blood," starring Jennifer Lawrence as the founder of controversial blood testing company Theranos. He also co-wrote and directed the pilot of the HBO series "Succession," the saga of a fictional, American global-media family that is not only rich and powerful but also powerfully dysfunctional.
The studio and producers of Dick Cheney biopic are aiming to start shooting in the spring for a late 2017 release.
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