Ronald Reagan Biopic

The life of actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan get the big-screen biopic treatment with a $30 million production set for release in late 2011.

Ralph Winter — whose Hollywood production credits include X-Men and Fantastic Four producer — has teamed up with Mark Joseph and screenwriter Jonas McCord on the $30 million-budgeted Reagan.

The film, based on Paul Kengor’s biographies The Crusader and God and Ronald Reagan, will open with the 1981 attempted assassination and chronicle his boyhood, career as a Hollywood actor, and years in the Oval Office in a barrage of flashbacks and flash-forwards, The Hollywood Reporter scooped on Wednesday.

“This is a great story. I’m just glad no-one else in Hollywood thinks so, or they’d have made this film by now….I watched Americans line up and wait for ten hours for the simple privilege of passing by his closed casket. They love this man,” Joseph says.

Producers say the project will be very different from the controversial 2003 Showtime miniseries The Reagans, which starred James Brolin and sparked outrage over its alleged political bias.

“Only in Hollywood could you make an insulting, condescending movie about a much-loved historical figure, hire an actor who loathes the man, watch it flop and then somehow conclude that Americans don’t want to see a movie about him.”

Reagan, the conservative 40th President of the United States, passed away in 2003. He is survived by his widow Nancy.

No actor has been cast in the title role yet.

Anyone interested in watching a Ronald Reagan biopic?