When I’m Clint Eastwood’s age, I hope I’m dead. If I’m not dead I hope I’m spending a lot of time chilling out; I can respect Eastwood’s drive to keep on making movies even as the very bones in his body slowly disintegrate with age, but I can’t understand it. Eastwood’s still not done with the movie industry, even after making two films back to back. His next movie is getting fast tracked (and seriously, it would have to be – the guy seems real healthy, but at that age there’s no point in procrastinating) at Universal by Imagine Entertainment.
The film is called The Changeling, and sadly it’s not a remake of the 1980 George C Scott movie that freaked me the fuck out as a young person. And it stars Angelina Jolie, who is surely no George C Scott (although let’s be honest, who would you rather fuck? Necrophiliacs need not respond). Written by none other than J. Michael Straczynski, a man whose continued multimedia success honestly baffles me like fire baffles apes, The Changeling is about a woman whose child is kidnapped and then returned, but she suspects the kid she gets back isn’t her son (I was going to say it would be funny if a black kid came back and then I remembered that Jolie beat me to that punchline by adopting the UN). Then she gets involved in LAPD corruption. Not sure how that all fits together, but it’s based on a true story from the 1920s.
The Changeling was originally a Ron Howard film-to-be, but he’s moved on to Frost/Nixon (so bummed he’s the one doing that, but glad I’ll be able to see the real show in New York) and has Angels and Demons, the follow-up to The DaVinci Code, after that. The Changeling’s already been sitting around for two years, so they passed it on to Eastwood. The movie will start shooting later this year.