Brett Ratner is reportedly set to direct the highly unnecessary film about the life of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, Playboy for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment.
Variety goes as far to say that Ratner “has a rep as a playboy himself” (guess they are talking about those Lindsay Lohan rumors) and says that he knows much about the mag’s history, though his visit to the Playboy mansion last week was his first.
At the age of 81 Hefner has never really been out of the limelight and Imagine producer Brian Grazer has apparently been attempting this idea for a while now, first as a musical and even Oliver Stone took a stab at several drafts of a script. This time around Ratner and new screenwriter John Hoffman found a way to make it work.
Whether or not Playboy will be Ratner’s next film depends on which script is finished first. Hoffman is just beginning to write the pic now while Ratner awaits an untitled caper film said to be in the spirit of Ocean’s Eleven, in which a group of employees of Manhattan’s Trump Tower rob its rich residents. Ratner and Grazer have Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock attached and hope to enlist Chris Tucker, Dave Chappelle, Jamie Foxx, Denzel Washington and Sidney Poitier. Trump has given his blessing and may appear in the film. Russell Gewirtz is rewriting the script now.
Ratner’s next in-theater film will be Rush Hour 3, which hits theaters on August 10. His last film was X-Men 3.
