Spielberg’s Chicago 7 May Get Hanks and Dumber

No, not that Hanks. The junior Hanks. Colin Hanks, that is. He and Jeff Daniels may be joining Steven Spielberg’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, about the protesters who messed with the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Reports also have it that the previously announced casting of Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman may not be rock solid just yet. CHUD has the scoop. Daniels would be Dave Dellinger and Hanks would be Rennie Davis.

Check out Dellinger’s mug shot. He even looks Jeff Danielsy. Hanks could easily look the part of Rennie Davis, too.

As far as the bigger picture of Spielberg doing this movie in the first place, Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere put forth the proposition that it was a really bad match of director and project, since Spielberg is the culture, he’s hardly got it in him to have the right counter-cultural aesthetic for this.

Spielberg isn’t Costa-Gavras, Oliver Stone, Steven Soderbergh or Bryan Singer. He’s never had an up-the-establishment attitude about anything. His personality is essentially that of a kid looking at something exotic and glowing with his nose pressed against a window pane. Maybe he’ll bring something fresh to this dusty counter-culture saga, but it feels like a very strange fit. Like Todd Solondz looking to direct a live-action Snow White movie.