Three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone is underway on new movie White Lies, which marks his first narrative feature in a decade. Josh Hartnett (Oppenheimer) stars in the movie, which Deadline can confirm and reveal more details about today.
The Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July and JFK director has written and will direct the original feature, which is described to us a departure from his previous work, being an intimate piece that explores “family, loss and pain and how love can change shape in the course of our lifetimes”.
In a story told across three generations, the pic “follows Jack Freeman (Hartnett), a child of divorce now repeating his parents’ mistakes in his own marriage and with his own children. Feeling trapped, he embarks on a lust-filled journey to free himself—only to find himself more lost than before. When he meets a woman, whose life is the opposite of his own, he begins an unexpected journey of rediscovery.”
Stone told us today: “After nearly 10 years away from features, I feel really like I’m starting again, as when I made Platoon and Salvador in 1986. White Lies will find its natural home, because it’s an eternal story of love.”
Hartnett said of the project: “Oliver explores a universe in White Lies that feels personal and entirely new material from a filmmaker I have long admired and am excited to work with.”
Principal photography has begun and takes place across international locations including Rome, Italy, Bangkok, Thailand, and Sofia, Bulgaria. Additional casting will be revealed shortly.
The film is produced by Fernando Sulichin alongside Maximilien Arvelaiz and Jordan Gertner for Sulichin’s New Element Media, which produced Stone’s Savages and Snowden and multiple other projects. Tarak Ben Ammar and Gianluca Leurini for Eagle Pictures serve as executive producers, as do James Packer and Jose Luis Manzano, both longtime collaborators of Sulichin.
Stone has been trying to make White Lies for more than a decade. Eight years ago a version had Benicio Del Toro attached to star. The director has concentrated more recently on documentaries. World Of Reel first had news of Hartnett’s casting and the project nearing shoot.
“We feel incredibly blessed that Oliver Stone, who has such an extraordinary and distinctive voice, is back writing and directing a narrative feature film for the first time since Snowden,” remarked Sulichin. “Stone has written or directed some of the most influential films of the last decades and with White Lies he returns to original and timeless storytelling that audiences love from him. Josh Hartnett is an actor of remarkable depth and instinct, and exactly who this story calls for.”
Hartnett stars in the upcoming Amazon/MGM film Verity opposite Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson from author Colleen Hoover. The Black Hawk Down actor recently guest starred on The Bear and starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s Warner Bros genre pic Trap, which made $84M at the global box office.
Hartnett is represented by Entertainment 360, Verve and Sloane, Offer. Stone is represented by John Burnham of Atlas Artists.