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Credit: Far Out \/Warner Bros. Pictures<\/p>\n
Sat 15 August 2026 19:15, UK <\/p>\n
As an actor, director, and producer, Clint Eastwood<\/a> had his bases pretty well-covered whenever the time came for the legendary star to decide on his next project, whether it was in front of the camera, behind it, or both.<\/p>\n However, at no point in his iconic career has the four-time Academy Award winner ever been credited as a screenwriter, which left him at the mercy of the scripts he was given. He was capable of doing the odd polish here and there, but for the most part, he\u2019d use the draft he read as the blueprint.<\/p>\n Eastwood has made countless films where he\u2019s admitted to not changing a single word of the script, so when he perused something that wasn\u2019t up to his standards, he\u2019d usually toss them away. Either that, or if Steven Spielberg had been interested<\/a> at one point, he\u2019d be more likely to make it a top priority.<\/p>\n That makes it strange to discover that when the grizzled veteran was offered the chance to take the reins on a literary adaptation, he gave the screenplay a once-over, came to the conclusion that he wasn\u2019t sold on the prospect, and then agreed to direct the picture and play the leading role anyway.<\/p>\n 1997\u2019s Absolute Power won\u2019t be remembered as one of his best, but the resoundingly ineffective political thriller did carry the novelty value of having Eastwood reunited with his Unforgiven co-star<\/a>, Gene Hackman, with the latter playing a president who frames the former\u2019s thief for a murder he watched the commander-in-chief commit alongside his Secret Service cronies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Castle Rock asked if I would be interested in that, I said, \u2018Not particularly,’\u201d the face of the revisionist western confessed. \u201cI liked the character, and I liked the excitement, but it didn\u2019t seem to be going anywhere.\u201d More than that, in David Baldacci\u2019s novel of the same name, on which the film was based, Luther Whitney gets killed off around the midway point of the story.<\/p>\n Whether it was for narrative or egotistical reasons, Eastwood didn\u2019t see the point in playing a character who didn\u2019t survive until the third act, which initially soured him on directing, too. \u201cThe protagonist gets killed off prematurely, I thought,\u201d he suggested. \u201cThere should be someone the audience is pulling for that has a better resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Clint Eastwood Newsletter<\/p>\n