Oliver Stone has not directed a narrative feature since 2016’s “Snowden,” a hiatus of more than 10 years and the longest gap without a film in his career.
Back in 2024, Stone revealed that he was working on “one more ambitious narrative film” and had signed with Atlas Artists for representation in all areas to “make that dream a reality.”
Then, in the fall, I reported that European backers had stepped in, and that the mysterious film was “White Lies,” a project Stone has been trying to make for over a decade, with Benicio del Toro once attached to the lead role. Sadly, I gave an update, only a few weeks later, reporting that the project had fallen apart.
Now, in an interview with Variety marking the 40th anniversary of his Oscar-winning classic Platoon, Stone finally acknowledges his pursuit of White Lies and says he believes it will get made.
I’ve been pretty busy setting up this lower-budget feature called “White Lies,” which I’ve tried to do for many years. It’s off and on. It’s a script I keep working on. It’s a personal story about people and relationships — husbands, wives, children, grandparents. It’s about three generations of a family, and hopefully I’ll pull it off. I’m very close.
Back in 2023, Stone admitted that he was struggling to secure financing for any of his projects, suggesting he had been “blacklisted” from Hollywood—mostly because of his defense of Vladimir Putin and Russia’s war in Ukraine. He tells Variety that he has now decided to back off from discussing politics.
I feel frustrated. I’ve certainly been loud in sharing my beliefs over the years, and my career has suffered for it. I’ve learned my lesson: Keep your views quiet.
Written and directed by Stone, White Lies was scheduled to shoot in Thailand and Italy in December. Stone, 78, recently stated that he has “one more ambitious film” left in him.
Spanning three generations, the story of “White Lies” follows Del Toro as a child of divorce now repeating his parents’ mistakes in his own marriage and with his troubled son. Feeling trapped, he embarks on a lust-filled quest for freedom, only to become more adrift. His path changes when he meets a woman whose life is the opposite of his own, sparking a journey of rediscovery.
From 1986 through 1997, Stone was a creative force with “Salvador” (’86), “Platoon” (’87), “Wall Street” (’87), “Born on the Fourth of July” (’89), and “JFK” (’91). You could extend that run to include “Natural Born Killers” (’94), which has its fans, “Nixon” (’95), and his underrated 1997 pulp-noir “U-Turn.”