John Cusack developing Rush Limbaugh film
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Actor and outspoken liberal John Cusack is developing a movie about conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, Cusack's production company said Friday.
The working title is "Rush," Cusack's New Crime Productions confirmed, offering no other details.
Hollywood director Betty Thomas, who's set to work on the film, said the production company is putting finishing touches on a script that will star the actor. Production is set for next year, Thomas said.
Limbaugh is in the front ranks of colorful and provocative media figures. Earlier this year, Limbaugh called a Georgetown law student a "slut" and a "prostitute" on air for arguing to Democrats in Congress that health plans should pay for contraception.
This week, the host mocked Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for his "bromance" with Obama after Christie praised the president's response to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Cusack as Limbaugh isn't typecasting, politics aside. Cusack is a slender, dark-haired 46-year-old, while Limbaugh is 61, balding and portly. But Hollywood's makeup experts have probably had greater challenges.
A publicist for Limbaugh said Friday he would check with the host for comment. The agency representing Cusack, Creative Artists Agency, declined comment on the project.
Cusack's credits range from the teen flick "Sixteen Candles" to offbeat films like "Being John Malkovich." He attended President Barack Obama's 2008 inauguration but has criticized Obama over his military and civil liberties policies.
Thomas is a former actress ("Hill Street Blues") and an Emmy-award winning director ("Dream On") whose big-screen films include Howard Stern's "Private Parts" and "The Brady Bunch Movie."
Thomas' latest project is an online series, "Audrey," that is showing on the YouTube channel WIGS.
The working title is "Rush," Cusack's New Crime Productions confirmed, offering no other details.
Hollywood director Betty Thomas, who's set to work on the film, said the production company is putting finishing touches on a script that will star the actor. Production is set for next year, Thomas said.
Limbaugh is in the front ranks of colorful and provocative media figures. Earlier this year, Limbaugh called a Georgetown law student a "slut" and a "prostitute" on air for arguing to Democrats in Congress that health plans should pay for contraception.
This week, the host mocked Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for his "bromance" with Obama after Christie praised the president's response to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Cusack as Limbaugh isn't typecasting, politics aside. Cusack is a slender, dark-haired 46-year-old, while Limbaugh is 61, balding and portly. But Hollywood's makeup experts have probably had greater challenges.
A publicist for Limbaugh said Friday he would check with the host for comment. The agency representing Cusack, Creative Artists Agency, declined comment on the project.
Cusack's credits range from the teen flick "Sixteen Candles" to offbeat films like "Being John Malkovich." He attended President Barack Obama's 2008 inauguration but has criticized Obama over his military and civil liberties policies.
Thomas is a former actress ("Hill Street Blues") and an Emmy-award winning director ("Dream On") whose big-screen films include Howard Stern's "Private Parts" and "The Brady Bunch Movie."
Thomas' latest project is an online series, "Audrey," that is showing on the YouTube channel WIGS.
John will you have enough time to cover all the marriages, the times in drug rehab, and his trip to the Dominican Republic. Hell, you can make a movie just based on his days he slandered Sandra Fluke.
And, so we will finally see the end of John Cusack's career. Will this Moorish film be a hit piece, exaggerate any perceived shortcomings of Limbaugh, exclude or misrepresent data, outright present distorted conclusions as fact, and avoid anything positive about Limbaugh with lots and lots of emphasis on the negative minority of information that almost everyone already knows about? Of course it will. Will it give us a fair representation of the man of which every political commentator owes some debt of gratitude. Will it acknowledge the fact that Rush in many ways got people paying attention from all sides. Probably not. This will not be a movie about the life of Rush Limbaugh. This is an attempt to bring Rush down and to make the man less relevant. This movie will be designed to make Limbaugh faithfuls look like dolts and prompt a national discussion as to why conservatives are bad and Limbaugh is their king. This will be the standard product of way out of touch narcissists who feel that they have something they need to teach society. Why they are right! I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh with any regularity but I have heard his show. He is no idiot. He is not a bad guy. If anything, he says it how he sees it without the standard PC filter and it gets him into trouble from time to time.    I liked "Better Off Dead" when I was a kid. I cannot stand Cusack and his ilk as an adult. Now please go away.
If Mr. Cusack doesn't research and show some good things Rush Limbaugh has done (donations to charity and other good works he does not talk about) he'll be excoriated for making a hit piece. Limbaugh is highly controversial, to say the least, and has said and done things that can be criticized. But he is not the evil/racist/homophobe/misogynist that his haters make him out to be. To fall into that trap, and assume that the potential audience would love to see Limbaugh torn apart, would be a mistake. If the hard left tenor of certain people in Hollywood dictates an extreme, hate-filled script, the movie will fail. Look at the stuff Oliver Stone did - had a lot of detractors and did not do as well as it could have if Stone's obvious dislike of his subject matter hadn't dominated.