Grant Chernow's "Grant" to be made into movie

KansasFreestater

1st Lieutenant
Is this going to be a miniseries or a motion picture? That’s a lot to take on for a motion picture: prewar, war and then his presidency. If it is, in fact, for the theaters, I hope it can treat all those years without coming off choppy and confusing - a colossal editing challenge!
 
I have not read that book yet, but I'm happy to see that Grant's life will be portrayed on the silver screen. The article says it will be a film but like Alan I wonder if this project will be turned into a miniseries. I don't think you can condense anyone's entire life into a 2 hour film. If it is a film, I'm guessing they'll pick a period of his life they find most interesting or cinematic rather than trying to tell the whole story. In that respect it would be similar to the movie Lincoln, which just focused on Lincoln's efforts to get the 13th Amendment passed.

Who do you all think should play Grant?
 
I see they're thinking of a movie about Teddy Roosevelt. He's got a bunch of movies in him:

Sickly youth becomes sports hero. Training montage!

Loses family in one day, flees to west, becomes dude rancher and deputy sheriff: pince nez and sixguns!

Police Commissioner of New York. Law and Order(da dum)

Leads the Rough Riders: Alone in Cuba!

Youngest President of the USA: Wild, wild west wing!
 
I see they're thinking of a movie about Teddy Roosevelt. He's got a bunch of movies in him:

Sickly youth becomes sports hero. Training montage!

Loses family in one day, flees to west, becomes dude rancher and deputy sheriff: pince nez and sixguns!

Police Commissioner of New York. Law and Order(da dum)

Leads the Rough Riders: Alone in Cuba!

Youngest President of the USA: Wild, wild west wing!

Now,... That's Entertainment!!! :laugh:

Well done, Matt.
 
Who do you all think should play Grant?
Too bad this guy’s not available.

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Here's the problem, though... Anyone who knows anything about Grant is going to have a significant amount of pre-formed opinion as to how he should be portrayed (actors playing Lee have a similar challenge, though I think Lee has had more screen time than Grant), and he's not as easy to caricature as (say) Lincoln or Stonewall Jackson (or to cite a recent non-Civil War example, Churchill).

I mean caricature in the sense of exaggerating widely-known aspects of the look or the personality. Let's face it, have any tall, thin man grow a beard and put on a stovepipe hat, and he'll be almost automatically accepted as a credible Lincoln before he even opens his mouth... Apart from the issue of the drinking, there's nearly nothing that's widely known about Grant in the popular mind, apart from being on the fifty and showing up in the Wild Wild West...

So, basically, I don't envy the actor selected to play Grant; he's going to be roundly criticized no matter what he does.

ETA Just re-read this and my point sort of got lost in my meanderings. What I primarily mean is that, in the popular mind, Grant isn't as much an icon as other historical figures. So people with little advance knowledge won't really know what to expect, whereas those with pre-existing knowledge will be more ready to jump on every aspect of the portrayal... does that make more sense?
 
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Apart from the issue of the drinking, there's nearly nothing that's widely known about Grant in the popular mind
Time to change that perhaps, and correct some of those misrepresentations. There's no doubt Grant was a reserved character, but he was central to a tumultuous time in U.S. history, and a key figure in the outcome of the Civil War, as well as a two term President. It may be the events surrounding him, and the characters influencing those events, that show Grant the man as he truly was. It seems to me some individuals shine a light on events, and some events shine a light on an individual. None of this, of course, is an indication of how good a biopic it might turn out to be. Fassbender's still my pick.
 
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