This is a bit of news we missed in the relative festive downtime, but it’s an intriguing prospect for both Oliver Stone and Shia LaBeouf.
Following their turn together in last year’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Stone revealed in the WS: MNS Blu-ray commentary track that during the making of the film Stone and LaBeouf mulled over the prospect of the young actor taking the lead in Stone’s long delayed film Pinkville.
Production of the film was delayed in 2007 by the Writer’s Strike and no official word has revealed that Pinkville is back on but it has all the hallmarks of an Oliver Stone film. Telling the story of the 1968 massacre at My Lai when nearly 500 Vietnamese civilians were killed by American forces before a US pilot stopped the killings by standing between his Army and their intended victims.
The incident was to have massive political repercussions. A year later the massacre was revealed and proved a turning point in support of the war. I have to admit that I did not know about this story before reading up on it for this post and it’s an incredible and inestimably horrific one, no doubt Stone would bring his considerable experience to honour the events, the question for us as moviegoers is whether Shia LaBeouf is the man to lead us through it.
On the cards for a while, the previous incarnation of the cast list including Bruce Willis, Woody Harrelson and Channing Tatum and it is Tatum who was said to be set for the role of Hugh Thompson Jr, the helicopter pilot whose actions halted the massacre, and who continued to fight in the war while the events were covered up. IGN revealed that Stone is looking to get the project moving again with LaBeouf, presumably in the role of Thompson.
If you want to know more click here for a thread with links to the documentary Four Hours in My Lai and the original reports by Symour Hersh which were published in 1969, bringing this story to the public’s attention. There’s no more news on the rest of the cast, or if the project is even being set up – nevertheless it’s one to keep an eye on.
