Why haven't they...

[McMurdo]

Forget the script for a moment and concentrate on the lead actor. You need a Scot (or at least a Brit who can play a Scot)

The only Scot I can think of off the top my head would have to be Ewan McGregor, of course if you went with a Brit Jude Law or perhaps Daniel Craig spring to mind, but then again with Robert Downey Jr. playing Holmes I suppose anything is possible. I wonder what Guy Ritchie would do with this story, or perhaps Quentin Tarantino But then they'd get Brad Pitt, Toby Maguire, or Matt Damon to play him or someone just as ridiculous.

[macwilkin]

The only Scot I can think of off the top my head would have to be Ewan McGregor, of course if you went with a Brit Jude Law or perhaps Daniel Craig spring to mind, but then again with Robert Downey Jr. playing Holmes I suppose anything is possible. I wonder what Guy Ritchie would do with this story, or perhaps Quentin Tarantino But then they'd get Brad Pitt, Toby Maguire, or Matt Damon to play him or someone just as ridiculous.

a young Anthony Andrews would do a decent job with Mad Jack. He did a very good job playing Col. Richard Meinertzhagen in the Aussie film The Lighthorsemen.

Meinertzhagen was just as colourful as Mad Jack was.

T.

[sathor]

Look for Fast and Furious 4 hitting the silver screen before we see a big bux war flick about "Mad Jack Churchill".

I bet that is true....

The Fast and the Furious (2001)
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Fast & Furious (2009)

In fact, #4 came out back in March, on an average of a 3 year cycle...
Unless you mean the 7th movie in the series, which would be hard to predict, for a myriad of reasons.

[Streetcar]

Good question. I'd watch it. How'd you happen across this?

[beloitpiper]

Good question. I'd watch it. How'd you happen across this?

I marched in a parade today, and afterward popped in "Instrument of War" (a documentary on bagpipes). In it, they interview Churchill's widow and I thought his story would make a great film.

[dfmacliam]

Sounds like his life would make an interesting movie.... I would pay to see it..

[Splash_4]

Thanks for this post. I had never heard of this gentleman, but he sounds like he was one tough person. It would be great to have a movie on his life like Audie Murphy did when he returned from war, "To H*** and Back" is still one of my favorite movies of the era.

[Bigkahuna]

Any guy running around with a longbow and a broadsword in WW2 is something I would pay to see.

[beloitpiper]

Any guy running around with a longbow and a broadsword in WW2 is something I would pay to see.

Don't forget about the bagpipes he played in the face of the advancing Germans!

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Any guy running around with a longbow and a broadsword in WW2 is something I would pay to see.

That makes you an audience of one... Hollywood, and by Hollywood I mean the entire film industry, is driven by numbers. And the PRIME NUMBER is the number of tickets sold. If a million people each bought a ticket for $10, that would represent a Box Office gross of ten million dollars. Of that ten million 50% is retained by the cinema owner. Of the $5 million left, a minimum of one million goes for prints of the film and advertising (and that's a tiny P&A budget). The distributor takes between 30-50% of the remaining $4 million, which leaves the studio $2 million. Now if the movie cost $5 million to produce (about one third of the average cost of a film) the studio loss is $3 million.

Carl Stucke was head of the story department at Warner Brothers back in the 60's. On his desk were two signs. One said, "So many good books, so few good movies" and the other one said, "The bucks start here".