Today in “We don’t want to see this, but we also kind of do want to see this, if we’re being honest with ourselvs” news: Michael Douglas is gearing up to play fellow thespian and Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War star Ronald Reagan for a Paramount TV limited series. Douglas—whose impression game pretty inarguably peaked with his (genuinely fantastic) turn as Liberace in 2013's Behind The Candelabra—will play ol’ Ronny at arguably the height of his career running the known world, the 1986 Reykjavík Summit with the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev that helped lay the groundwork for the conclusion of the Cold War.
And who’ll be playing the Soviet General Secretary? None other than unrestrained accent user Christoph Waltz, who will presumably turn the Russian leader into a truly fascinating series of fun actors’ quirks. (We kid, we kid.) The series will be directed by James Foley, lately of House Of Cards, Billions, and two out of three Fifty Shades movies, and still probably best known for directing films like the 1992 version of Glengarry Glen Ross. Foley will be working from a book about the Summit penned by Reagan’s old arms control director Ken Adelman, helping to bring the drama, tension, and god-it’s-going-to-be-so-many-wigs-and-birthmarks vibe of Reagan & Gorbachev to life.
No word yet on what network or streaming service the limited series might ultimately land at; Paramount’s had success on all the major services, with shows on Apple TV+, Netflix, Amazon, HBO Max, and more.
41 Comments
Well…
You know, he did say well a lot.
There you go again.
Might Ronald McDonald be a secondary option, old sport?
Why would a clown leave a functioning corporation to be President?
He can play Ronald Reagan in his latter yearsRonald Reagan Falling Down.
I was just looking at that pic of Reagan and wondering who could play him in his younger years, and the first image that came to me was… Nathan Fillion. Never saw a resemblance before but I can totally see it working now.
IMO, it’s been a long time since Douglas has given a performance that isn’t the same as all his others. He’s a skilled movie star, but he’s long since passed the point in his career where all his performances became variations on his movie star persona.Also, I’d rather not give Reagan any more screen time than he’s already gotten. Consign the fucker to the dustbin of history.
To be fair, history’s villains have always gotten more screen time. There are countless movies about Hitler and Stalin.
I always forget he’s in the Ant-man movies, which is at least a little different.
Ronald Reagan is one of the most influential presidents we’ve ever had. We will be feeling his effects hundreds of years down the line. He was fucking evil and monstrous, but it’s impossible to put him in the dustbin of history.
Okay then, instead consign him to the dustbin of History Channel TV shows.
Gotta say “long since passed the point in his career where all his performances became variations on his movie star persona” is how I feel about Waltz. And for him I think that point was his second English language movie. At least Douglas has had Behind the Candelabra in the last ten years.
I can’t wait to see the foot chase with Keanu Reeves!
It’s pretty fitting Gordon “Greed is good” Gekko is playing his real life political model; the president who more than any other made possible the radical hijacking and transformation of America, its economy, and its government, by the corporate right into the oligarchy we live in today. Alas the film isn’t about that, which with Douglas’s casting, it should have been.
Indeed. Trump’s a Star Wars Villain, and Star Wars film’s bad guys are, you know, fiction. Focused on grifting the taxpayer. Just as George Lucas told us.
Hopefully this at least makes some in the GOP question their stance on whether or not walls are good or bad.
This will work best if they have Douglas acting in person, and every other character depicted via Land of Confusion-style puppets.
IIRC, this was supposed to be a theatrical movie with Douglas, that was set to film a few years ago, but something fell through at the last minute, either funding or actor’s and director’s schedules and it was scrapped. I’m interested in seeing it, especially after the Reagan miniseries a few years ago with James Brolin and Judy Davis. Judy was a good Nancy, but Brolin as usual, underwhelmed.
Yeah, I remember that, it was going to be called “Reykjavík” I believe.
Ronald Reagan? THE ACTOR?!
I hope they make him Rap a bunch
Quick question for the AV Clubbers of A Certain Age: were you guys as confused about Douglas’s late ‘80s/early ‘90s sex symbol status then as I am today? Like, were people watching the run of Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and Disclosure and being like, “Yeah, makes sense that women would be super horny/blow up their entire lives for this jowly man”?
I stopped having kitchen sex because of his cooking show. Man, I miss a hearty salad …
Stewed rabbit is always a good time, especially if the woman you’re cheating on is boiling the bunny for you!!
Oh, come on. His ass was in his socks, rootin’ away in that kitchen.
Will a birthmarkless actor be able to play the birthmarked in these demographically sensitive times? Will Waltz truly understand what its like, when ……Why not?
Big Red NO.The first news I ever watched on TV was when I was 5 and Reagan got out of the hospital after he was shot. He was the best ever…and then I got educated in middle school during the Iran-Contra Affair. Now is the absolute worst time to be promoting any kind of pro-GOP film/series/whatever, because seriously, it’s everywhere already. Does the American populous really need more veiled pro-Trump rhetoric? -shaking Magic 8 Ball- “Not Fucking Likely”
Yeah, that about sums it up.Or not. I’m thinking “We did all we can” is the exact opposite.Fuck the GOP. Fuck Mitchell. Fuck Trump.
he shoulda got an Oscar for that Liberace movie
holy shit
I want to see Douglas dance a jig on Reagan’s grave. That’s about it.
With Trump gone, Conservatives will go back to fapping to the myth of Ronnie Raygun full time. He was a dumb, racist, incompetent piece of shit who caused inmensurable damage, and only looks “good” when compared to the Republicans that preceeded him. Fuck every single “moderate” who buys into this shit.
“He was a dumb, racist, incompetent piece of shit who caused inmensurable damage”But that’s the part they like. You have to remind them that Reagan was also a union president and pushed gun control laws in California.
As long as he plays him as the racist, homophobic, aids-denying, misogynistic, apartheid supporting, iran-contra complicit, union busting, trickle down economic adherent, anti-abortion fanatic, deficit-spending hypocrite, asshole that Reagan was, I’m OK with it.
As long as the series pisses on the traitor’s grave I’m all for it. Candidate Reagan had financed the Iranian hostage crisis, bribing Iran into holding onto the hostages until his inauguration (which they did), then afterward stealing from America’s own warfighting arsenal and shipping tons of weapons to Revolutionary Iran. While of course pocketing millions in the process.
TIL that Michael Douglas is still alive.
Or Bruce Campbell can reprise the role!
The last I heard of this, it was a film called Reykjavik and only Waltz had been cast. And that was years ago.
Because we haven’t seen enough treason lately?