Upcoming ‘W.’ Movie Not a ‘Political Movie,’ Brolin Says

Oliver Stone’s upcoming movie on George W. Bush, “W.”, isn’t intended to demean the outgoing president, according to Stone and the actor who will portray Bush, Josh Brolin.

“Republicans can look at it and say, ‘This is why I like this guy,’ ” Brolin told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not a political movie. It’s a biography. People will remember that this guy is human, when we are always [outside of the movie] dehumanizing him, calling him an idiot, a puppet, a failed president. We want to know in the movie: How does a guy grow up and become the person that he did?”

Stone, who was briefly a classmate of Bush at Yale University, told the Times the movie aims to explain a man who went from being a hard drinker to being president. Stone denied that it would be a as harsh on Bush as Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

“I love Michael Moore, but I didn’t want to make that kind of movie,” Stone said. “‘W.’ isn’t an overly serious movie, but it is a serious subject. It’s a Shakespearean story. . . . I see it as the strange unfolding of American democracy as I have lived it.”

Stone is hoping for an October 2008 release.