John Cusack Developing Rush Limbaugh Biopic

John Cusack is developing a movie about right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Cusack would star.

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The project, as first reported by the AP, has a working title of Rush and is being produced by Cusack's own production company, New Crime Productions.

New Crime revealed to the AP that Betty Thomas (The Brady Bunch Movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel) is attached to direct. A shooting script is nearing completion, with the liberal Cusack, 46, set to step into the unlikely role of the 61-year-old conservative firebrand. 

"New Crime Productions and John Cusack are currently considering a project about the larger-than-life radio personality, Rush Limbaugh," a rep for New Crime tells The Hollywood Reporter in a statement. "Betty Thomas, who covered similar terrain in her portrait of Howard Stern, is interested in directing. The script would explore the rise and reinvention of American Talk Radio, and Limbaugh's continued influence and impact over the last three decades in that world."

Limbaugh has fanned the flames of controversy throughout his three-decade career, none more so than in February, when he called Georgetown University Law Center student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" for advocating for insurance coverage of contraceptives. The comments resulted in widespread outrage and led to 45 companies pulling their ads from his syndicated program, The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Thomas -- who, having directed the 1997 Howard Stern biopic Private Parts, has some familiarity with bringing shock jock stories to the big screen -- tells the AP that production is set "for next year."

Twitter: @SethAbramovitch

Email: seth.abramovitch@thr.com