HBO plans film on 2008 election

After the success of Recount, the story of the 2000 presidential election, HBO is ready to tackle the 2008 race. The network has already optioned the 2010 book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, Variety reports. Written by Time magazine editor-at-large Mark Halperin and New York magazine national political correspondent John Heilemann, the book follows the campaigns from the candidates’ perspectives. Blood Diamond screenwriter Charles Leavitt will pen the adaptation, while Halperin and Heilemann serve as consultants on the film. “It’s funny to call Obama and Hillary characters, but that’s how I haveto look at them,” Leavitt told the trade. “To me, the primary was one of thegreatest title fights of the century, and John and Mark have a treasurechest of anecdotes and inside stories. I think it will present itselfalmost like a stage play, like Frost/Nixon or The Queen.”

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HBO’s ’08 election movie: Who would you cast?