Hail to the Chief: Reagan Biopic in the Works

Ronald Reagan in the 1940s.

The Hollywood Reporter says that the life of Ronald Reagan will be made into a big screen biopic. Ralph Winter and Mark Joseph are producing. Jonas McCord wrote a script based on Paul Kengor’s Reagan biographies ”The Crusader” and “God and Ronald Reagan.”

The 40th president’s life was previously dramatized in a 2003 Showtime miniseries, “The Reagans.” Apparently it was originally supposed to run on CBS, but there were some complaints before it ran–people felt the script had a negative bias–and the nervous broadcast network shunted it to cable. I swear, I was alive and living in this country, and I don’t remember this at all.

The feature film script starts with the 1981 assassination attempt and tells Reagan’s story through flashbacks and flash-forwards. Reagan had a fairly interesting career. He started out in small-time radio, was an actor in the late ’30s and ’40s who made more B movies than A movies; probably his best known movies are “Knute Rockne: All-American” and “King’s Row,” and he wasn’t the star of either. Legend has it that Warner Brothers originally planned to make “Casablanca” as a low-budget B picture, with Reagan and Ann Sheridan as Rick and Ilsa. Yeah, that still is scary. Reagan then worked in early TV and was president of the Screen Actors Guild before moving into politics full-time.

So the real story here is casting. Who should play Reagan? Will they do a younger version and an older one, or just do one actor who’s heavily made up in one direction or the other? THR has a poll with suggestions, and they’re all, to be honest, crazy. Andrew Garfield, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zac Efron, Chris Pine, and James Franco? If they go with one actor, they’d need to shoot a little older, someone more in the middle. If they’re going with a younger and older guy, well, none of these actors resemble Reagan. I don’t mean just physically–when you’re doing a biopic, you can’t expect to find someone who’s identical, but you need someone who can project that person’s demeanor or personality. None of these guys are right. You need someone decent looking, but not movie star pretty (if Reagan had looked like Chris Pine, he would have been a much bigger star). You sort of need a little frat boy, but like a really grown up frat boy, not one of those 40 something guys who’s still acting like a baby. I mean more like a frat type who has the kind of sales and networking personality that gets him both elected president of the frat and twenty years later, promoted to head of his department at whatever company. I honestly don’t have any suggestions right now. I have a feeling it will end up being a British actor who will nail Reagan’s speaking voice and accent in another show-offy example of how well-trained British actors are.

The producers are aiming for a late 2011 release. No word on whether the Reagan family is cooperating.