Clive Owen & Nicole Kidman set to play Hemingway & Gellhorn

If you’re thinking, ‘Hey those people don’t look like Clive and Nicole,’ you’d be quite right. Let’s try not to get hung up on a lookalike contest. Let’s focus instead on Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen directed by Philip Kaufman in a quality HBO film together. Because even having them in the same room together is enough to pique my interest. Deadline has the “EXCLUSIVE”:

In 1936, Ernest Hemingway was already a legend when he met Gellhorn, a novelist and one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th Century, in a local bar in Key West. Their tumultuous romance and subsequent 5-year marriage took them to the Spanish Civil War as Gellhorn stood toe-to-toe with the literary master, putting his famous bravado and iconic style to the test. Gellhorn’s competitive nature inspired the novelist to pen one of its most famous novels, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Originally envisioned as feature film until somebody realized studios don’t make feature films about grownup romance anymore, Hemingway & Gellhorn was offered to HBO by James Gandolfini, who once upon a time was set to star. (ok, ok, what did I say about not getting hung up on a lookalike contest?) Filming begins next year, a long way off, but that’s another difference between most production houses and HBO. When they announce a project we know it’s actually gonna happen.