Should I put Charlie Wilson’s War down for a Best Picture nomination for 2007 already? Listen to this line-up: Mike Nichols is directing Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman in a Tom Hanks and Gary Boetzman produced film that was written by “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin and now thye have added Oscar-nominee Amy Adams to the cast.
Oh, I should also mention that the novel by George Crile, of which the film is adapted from, is described by some as better than anything Tom Clancy has ever done.
Crile was a “60 Minutes” reporter for CBS and the story of Charlie Wilson is about a rogue Texas congressman (Hanks) whose penchant for booze and women earned him the nickname Good Time Charlie. He watched his political career almost go down the drain in the early 1980s when he was caught in a hot tub tryst with two cocaine-sniffing showgirls in Las Vegas.
He survived the scandal and ended up overseeing the largest and most successful covert CIA operation in history; his efforts to fund resistance fighters in Afghanistan hastened the fall of the Iron Curtain.
The film begins lensing in Morocco in mid-October, most likely for an Oscar run release in late 2007. Universal Pictures is distributing.
