You have $150 million to make one Civil War movie - make a realistic pitch.

No offense but I tried watching Wicked Spring again just a few days ago and in my opinion it's not a good movie movie. The opening battle scene has pretty good production values and I was enjoying it but as soon as the story starts progressing I thought the movie just got really boring and cliched and didn't make much sense. Why wouldn't they even think to ask what unit each other are from? That's the first thing soldiers would ask if they were separated from their units. The ending scene where they all get killed between the two armies is pretty ridiculous. It could have been a good movie but I think it really needed a better script.

Oh no offence taken, to each their own. Plus it could have done with a better script, you won't get an argument from me.

My personal view is the silent beginning is boring, the Battle of the Wilderness scenes are AWESOME!!! Then the first part of the night when their searching around is, well interesting, then after they set up camp it get agonizingly boring, then the morning scenes seem, off, and then them in between to enemies is off, and their all dying is a "well that sucks" moment. But all and all I give it a personal score of 7 out of 10.

The attention to uniforms, terrain, the building and surrounding in civil life at the beginning, the battle in general, is off the charts in well done! (historically speaking) For me, but the slow pace story line, the ridiculous notion that the two groups of enemy soldiers wouldn't recognize each other after they camped, (the wounded man's accent, and the sack coats and sky-blue trousers would have given them away and vice versa)and then the mean loud mouth soldier taking the Yanks prisoner and basically everything else, horrible and off. But all and all I'd say its a decent movie, especially for an independent one made on $500,000.
 
Monitor vs Merrimack with a cast of big names, big sets, and CGI might be a good choice. The fairly inconclusive nature of the fight is probably a big mark against it though. Still have not seen it yet, but the made-for-TNT Ironclads movie covering the battle is supposed to be pretty decent.
 
An alternative history idea would be the Trent Affair leading to war between the UK and US. Big battles on the US-Canada border and at sea would ensue. Harry Turtledove had a series on something similar.
 
Those fellas are pretty old now.

A sort of a Civil War movie that's a masterpiece is The Shine Shines Bright, 1953. Small budget, black and white, no big stars.

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If you mean The Sun Shines Bright with John Ford, director, you make a good point, but it would never pass today's critics because of the racial stereotypes (Stepin' Fetchit, etc.).
 
That's a a little cherrypicked and you left out Glory which got 8.2 on IMDB. I mean there are big budget WWII flops, like Pearl Harbor with its $140 million budget in 2001 that was universally panned and has 6.1 on IMDB. However apparently it still did make $450 million at the box office so that is something, not like *Gods and Generals* which straight up lost $50 million. But there a lot of great war movies that don't have ridiculously huge budgets. Platoon had a budget of $6 million in 1986 which still comes to only about $14 million today and there is Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima with a $19 million budget that got 7.9 on IMDB and is a great movie either way. I wish there could be more Civil War movies like Platoon or Letters from Iwo Jima.

Edit: Also the Alamo movie on that list had a budget of over $100 million ($145 million today) yet it still flopped. I think it's a good movie but I can see why a lot of people didn't. It's kind of slow and disjointed.



No offense but I tried watching Wicked Spring again just a few days ago and in my opinion it's not a good movie movie. The opening battle scene has pretty good production values and I was enjoying it but as soon as the story starts progressing I thought the movie just got really boring and cliched and didn't make much sense. Why wouldn't they even think to ask what unit each other are from? That's the first thing soldiers would ask if they were separated from their units. The ending scene where they all get killed between the two armies is pretty ridiculous. It could have been a good movie but I think it really needed a better script.
Yes, I forgot about Glory, thank you.
Rating: 7.9 Budget: $18M Receipts: $26.8M

See, as I said, you have to spend money to make it.
 
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Gone With the Wind with Gable, Leigh, etc. was the penultimate ACW box office success, although I admit it has precious little fighting, so I remain optimistic that a modern ACW movie can equal it, given a big budget. All that's needed is a screenplay equal to that of Margaret Mitchell's novel (love + war = big receipts).

 
I think a good location and storyline would be the Union mills homestead in Carroll county Maryland a still operational mill furnished the way it was in antebellum times where two brothers A K Shriver who supported the north and gave one of his sons to the northern army and living across the road his brother William Shriver who supported the confederacy and gave 6 of his sons(ancestors of mine) to the the southern army the two families came to blows on several occasions prior to and during the war but after the war managed to reconcile
During the gettysburg campaign general Sykes camped at A Ks side of the littlestown pike while just hours before Jeb stuart camped on William's side of the littlestown pike I think using the true history of the family and place would make a movie I'd be interested in watching
 
It's a small budget, so I'd focus on the guerilla war in Kentucky/Tennessee. Those areas were bitterly divided, so you'd get people living a few miles up the holler who would have taken opposite sides. Some families would have men in the regular armies, serving at the front, while others were involved in guerrilla war.
 
It's a small budget, so I'd focus on the guerilla war in Kentucky/Tennessee. Those areas were bitterly divided, so you'd get people living a few miles up the holler who would have taken opposite sides. Some families would have men in the regular armies, serving at the front, while others were involved in guerrilla war.
I like it but I'd throw in western north carolina too
 
I agree with @rebracer as I've said this before: An inclusive movie about the battle of Franklin:
Everyone knows the movie "Carrie" so how about "Carrie in Black" or simply "Carnton"
November 30, 1864 Union and Confederate armies clashed at "Carnton" Plantation in Franklin Tennessee for the battle of Franklin. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederates and became the defining event of Catherine Winder "Carrie" MaGavock's life as well as her family's. She previously had lost three children of her own which makes her a sympathetic character to begin with notwithstanding her wonderful plantation home commandeered as a field hospital where blood is still seen on the floor to this day.
Picture everybody's now favorite villain, General NB Forrest, riding up on King Phillip to commandeer it to boot! The bodies of four of the six Confederate generals who were killed in the battle – Major General Patrick Cleburne and Brigadier Generals John Adams, Otho F. Strahl and Hiram B. Granbury, were laid out on the family’s back porch after the conclusion of the fighting.
When it became apparent that a cemetery to accommodate about 1500 Southern casualties was needed, the McGavocks responded by donating their land and supervising the transportation of the dead from the battlefield to the new burial ground. The graveyard consumed Carrie McGavock, who forever wore black, and the remnants of the family fortune until her own death at age 76. The 2005 historical novel "The Widow of the South" by author Robert Hicks renewed interest in her story.
There would be something in it for everyone! Her backstory, bloody battle, plantation field hospital, a plantation mistress/instant nurse who forever grieved for 1500 soldiers and an ongoing story of a historic cemetery. Plus, it is still there and coupled with some expert CGI could be close to authentic as possible!




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i would finish the trilogy . by father and son Jeff Shaara
As The Last Full Measure opens, Gettysburg is past and the war advances to its third brutal year. On the Union side, the gulf between the politicians in Washington and the generals in the field yawns ever wider. Never has the cumbersome Union Army so desperately needed a decisive, hard-nosed leader. It is at this critical moment that Lincoln places Ulysses S. Grant in command--and turns the tide of war.

For Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg was an unspeakable disaster--compounded by the shattering loss of the fiery Stonewall Jackson two months before. Lee knows better than anyone that the South cannot survive a war of attrition. But with the total devotion of his generals--Longstreet, Hill, Stuart--and his unswerving faith in God, Lee is determined to fight to the bitter end.

Here too is Joshua Chamberlain, the college professor who emerged as the Union hero of Gettysburg--and who will rise to become one of the greatest figures of the Civil War.

Battle by staggering battle, Shaara dramatizes the escalating confrontation between Lee and Grant--complicated, heroic, deeply troubled men. From the costly Battle of the Wilderness to the agonizing siege of Petersburg to Lee's epoch-making surrender at Appomattox, Shaara portrays the riveting conclusion of the Civil War through the minds and hearts of the individuals who gave their last full measure.
 
Nathan Bedford Forrest is pretty controversial. What would be the theme of this mini-series about him? Would it be sort of hagiographical like Gods and Generals was about Jackson, or more like Hitler: The Rise of Evil?

Sorry just noticed this.

I wouldn't use either formula you've put forth, I'd just tell the truth unbiased and let the viewer decide. Of course whether you love him or hate him, or are pro-Union or pro-Confederate usually defines what the unbiased truth is, (I don't care if someone says they're unbiased but if they always takes the Union's side, or vice versa with pro-CSA folks, they are biased, even if they don't acknowledge it). Personally I think the G&G formula is a horrible one, as just look at it, and the Hitler one a bad one as it was heavily biased with some things outright fabricated, (I'm not taking up for that monstrous s.o.b. I just feel the truth was bad enough), so I'd just go with the direction of telling the unvarnished truth, and let the audience decide. Of course chances are I'd tick off people on both sides lol.

I'd just simply take everything from the historical record, everything people who were closest to him said, and write the script around that. In the case of Fort Pillow, I'd probably take what he supposedly said in a newspaper interview about it and write those scenes at Fort Pillow around that as its a version that goes unheard. As for dialog, we only know so much of his character from the people who knew him, but I reckon it'd be enough to build an accurate picture of him for the screen.

It would be controversial, in this day and age there'd be a big media hoop-a-la over it, but what is controversy and coverage bashing such things? Free advertising! You know what, I say everyone look away, I might just research and research it, write it, and see if any producers will be brave enough to get it on screen. I already suggested it to one writer and producer and he thought it'd be risky, brave, and awesome to film. I might just go ahead and try it, just don't expect it for decade or so because I'm already working on another CW one, that I'm taking time to get right the first time. These things move agonizingly slow in the film industry.
 
Remakes are such a big thing nowadays, with it being viewed as a guaranteed way for a film to make money whether its good or bad, so how about a remake of, (drum roll)...

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!!!!!

Or better yet...

Santa Fe Trail!!!

(Just a word warning, I'm jesting, don't tar and feather me on the Santa Fe Trail lol.)
 
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