Once upon a time, Oliver Stone was actually a pretty good director, with a few moments of great quality.

He wrote the screenplay for the coke-fuel insanity of SCARFACE that has gone from hated box-office dud to many calling it one of the best movies of the 1980s. Plus, inspiring generations of rappers who sorta missed the whole point about materialism and the crime lifestyle not really good for your health.

Then from 1986 with PLATOON to about 1995 with NIXON, Stone made a truckload of flicks. Then he got the paranoid-persona from his JFK, which he's never shaken off. Plus, he was taking shrooms, which might explain NATURAL BORN KILLERS*.

But since his last great work NIXON, Stone has been off-key. Nobody cared about U-TURN. ANY GIVEN SUNDAY is only remembered for Jamie Foxx and Al Pacino yelling. The less said about ALEXANDER**, the better.

While WORLD TRADE CENTER made a profit, it was certainly the blander of the two 9/11-topic pictures of 2006, with Paul Greengrass' UNITED 93 being more challenging and interesting.

With this procedural picture about the My Lai massacre, Stone might have a chance to get his creative juices back on track (off the crack whores would help too), and with the very Hollywood Republican Bruce Willis, this project might not go off the political deep end.

Anyway, here is the report from VARIETY:

"United Artists near deal for 'Pinkville'
Oliver Stone drama stars Bruce Willis
Source: Variety

Oliver Stone is heading back to Vietnam.

He is closing a deal with United Artists to finance "Pinkville," a drama about the investigation of the 1968 My Lai massacre that he would direct. Pic would be distributed through MGM.

Bruce Willis and Channing Tatum will star. Mikko Alanne wrote the script.

A UA commitment could be finalized this week, putting the picture into production by early next year, with a budget of roughly $40 million.

It marks the fourth time Stone has directed a film set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, following Oscar winner "Platoon," "Heaven & Earth" and "Born on the Fourth of July." "Pinkville" also reunites the director with Tom Cruise, who starred in "Born on the Fourth of July" and who, with partner Paula Wagner, is now a co-owner of UA.

Willis will play Army Gen. William R. Peers, who supervised the investigation into the massacre by U.S. soldiers of as many as 500 My Lai villagers, most of them unarmed women, children and elderly.

Tatum will play Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot who, upon realizing what was happening below, put a stop to the killing by placing his craft between gunmen and the few villagers who were left, and telling his two shipmates to fire on the soldiers if they shot any more people. They airlifted the survivors and reported the carnage to superiors.

Pinkville is the description on a military map for the region where My Lai is.

Stone had been expected to follow "World Trade Center" with a drama about the CIA's attempt to catch Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan after 9/11.

Instead, he will tackle "Pinkville," which is set up as a mystery but explores the themes of barbarism and heroism. Thompson was initially excoriated for his actions, while Peers' revelation of one of the most atrocious acts in U.S. military history (and subsequent military cover-up) helped galvanize opposition to the war.

Alanne, who wrote and directed the 1997 docu "Voice of Dissent" about the LAPD and the murder of Sen. Robert Kennedy, most recently scripted "Notorious," about the killings of rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur "

*=Though I quite liked NATURAL BORN KILLERS. Its overwhelming in many moments, but its insanity works. Stone using the same editing tricks for ANY GIVEN SUNDAY though was way over-board.
**=ALEXANDER actually has broken even, and started making a profit for WB. Thats why there is 3 different versions of the movie out in the DVD market.

Hasn't Vietnam cow (like WW-2 cow) been milked totally dry by Hollywood? It would be interesting to see if any new theme is explored in this one...

I hope they keep him.

And freeze him in carbonite, ala Han Solo, to be placed in the Ho Chi Minh Vietnam Victory museum in Hannoi.

i agree hollywood is kinda of beating a dead horse with the vietnam pictures. but the point of film espcially war film and movies like scarface is to get the real point of the movie, which is that war and violence are horrible and unnessary, not that we need to keep having wars.

the idea for the movie sounds great but innocent people are being murdered, raped, and having their home ravaged in Iraq everyday and the same im sure is true of vietnam. so what are these movies really accomplishing besides keeping the memory of vietnam war and its victims alive, when the powers that be continue to ignore the carnage of war.

I dunno, Iraq will be a fresh cow that'll get milked to death very soon.

Besides, recent WW2-themed pictures like U-571, ENEMY AT THE GATES, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, THE PIANIST, prove that WW2 can still be ground to sweep for a cinema tale, and I argue the same for Vietnam.

Anyway, I think PINKVILLE has the story-potential for Stone to get off his funk and make something worthwhile...and surely the very Republican-Willis wouldn't have signed on this movie as the lead if the liberal-Stone wanted to go off the radar, if you get my drift.

Better than that HALLOWEEN remake he *almost* shot.

Haha that's right!

Teach him to protest..