After a decade of making documentaries, Oliver Stone will make his first feature film in ten years. L’Espresso reports that after years of development, Stone will start work on the project, entitled “White Lies,” next, and it stars an actor from another one of his recent features: “Savages” actor Benicio del Toro.
READ MORE: Oliver Stone Has One More Narrative Feature He’d Like To Make
“White Lies” will only be the second time Stone and del Toro work together, but the actor signing on for the film may have helped Stone acquire a working budget for it. That’s because Stone hasn’t worked in Hollywood for about a decade now, in no small part due to his recent spate of controversial political projects, including the 2012 doc series “The Untold History Of The United States” and 2017’s “The Putin Interviews.”
World of Reel reports Stone claims he’s been blacklisted by Tinsel Town since his Putin series, but he’s stayed busy since then. In 2021, Stone made “JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Gas,” with “Nuclear Now” arriving the next year, and “Lula,” a doc about Brazilian politician Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, premiering in 2024.
But back to “White Lies.” His first feature since 2016’s “Snowden.” Stone plans to shoot the film over four months in Italy and Thailand this Fall. Del Toro will star as a man who goes on a globetrotting journey to escape his troubled family history, only to meet a woman who makes him reconsider everything. World Of Reel has a more in-depth synopsis from somewhere; read it below:
Spanning three generations, the story of “White Lies” follows Del Toro as a child of divorce now repeating his parents’ mistakes in his own marriage and with his troubled son. Feeling trapped, he embarks on a lust-filled quest for freedom, only to become more adrift. His path changes when he meets a woman whose life is the opposite of his own, sparking a journey of rediscovery.
“White Lies” sounds like quite a departure from Stone’s recent political work, as well his four last features: 2008’s George W. Bush biopic “W,” 2010’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” 2012’s “Savages,” and 2016’s “Snowden.” Stone told L’Espresso he doesn’t consider the project a political film, but rather a work “about life, form what I’ve understood so far.” That may make “White Lies” something of a late-period film for the director: an enticing proposition from the guy who made “Platoon” and “Natural Born Killers,” among other things.
But does Stone truly have the funding to make “White Lies” happen? Apparently he does, although it’s all European, non-Hollywood backers, which could end up a boon for Stone and his creative vision for the film. Let’s hope it happens. It’s been far too long since general audiences had an Oliver Stone feature to savor and enjoy.
