Special Coverage The Photo IssueThe Must List2008 Fall TV2008 Fall Movies2008 Fall Music
Denzel Washington will reprise Sinatra's ''Candidate'' role | 9033__denzel_l
DENZEL'S CANDIDACY Washington to fill Old Blue Eyes' shoes
Denzel Washington: Tom Rodriguez/Globe Photos

Guess sniper movies are fair game again. Variety reports that Denzel Washington will star in a remake of ''The Manchurian Candidate,'' the classic 1962 John Frankenheimer thriller about a veteran who learns his war buddy is embroiled in a plot to assassinate a presidential candidate. Tina Sinatra will coproduce the Paramount movie, in which Washington will play the heroic role played in the original by her father, Frank Sinatra.

Presumably, the original's Cold War politics, as outlined in the 1959 novel by Richard Condon, have been updated in the new screenplay, by Dan Pyne (who adapted Tom Clancy's similarly conspiratorial ''The Sum of All Fears''). The Chairman of the Board reportedly approved of the remake idea before he died in 1998. ''He believed, as we do, that premises can be brought into the future,'' his daughter told Variety.

Still, the story has a long history of controversy. It was pulled from circulation for many years after John F. Kennedy's assassination a year after the film's release. (Frankenheimer, who died this year, and Frank Sinatra were both friends of the Kennedy family.) It's not clear whether audiences even today are willing to watch a blackly satirical thriller centering on a sniper attack on a politician. Last month, with the D.C. area sniper attacks gripping the nation, 20th Century Fox postponed its sniper movie ''Phone Booth'' from its scheduled November release date until early next year. With Washington due to shoot the thriller ''Man on Fire'' next, his ''Candidate'' won't hit the stump until 2004 -- just in time for another real-life presidential campaign.


Posted Nov 18, 2002 | Order Article Reprints