As reported by Deadline, Sean Penn has signed on to play Andrew Jackson in a new project for HBO called I Have An Opinion On That Guy: The Movie. Well, it’s not really called that, but it might as well be. After all, Sean Penn and Andrew Jackson are both relatively controversial figures, and it’s a good chance that most people out there have strong opinions on one or both of them.
The project will actually be a six-hour miniseries called American Lion, and it’ll be based on Jon Meacham’s Jackson biography of the same name. Going off of some comments from Deadline‘s article, it sounds like the miniseries will cover multiple big chunks of Jackson’s life instead of focusing on one important event or period. As for what happens in those chunks, Deadline notes that he was “a self-made man, a western outsider, a violent warrior, and a beloved general.” Also, he kicked a ton of Native Americans off of their land and owned a bunch of slaves. Similarly, Sean Penn is also a self-made man, a western outsider, a violent warrior, and a beloved general, but he probably never forced any Native Americans to go anywhere or owned any slaves. Still, they’re pretty similar.
American Lion will go into production next year (which is in a couple weeks anyway), and then it’ll start grabbing Golden Globe nominations at some point after that.