It's been about five years since it was first announced that Former President Ronald Reagan would be getting his very own biopic, and apparently it's taken that long for the project to find an actor to star. But now the search is finally over, and it's been revealed that former Disney star David Henrie will be starring in the film as the actor-turned-politician.
This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter, which says that Henrie is now locked in to star in Reagan - though it's also interesting to note that the biopic won't actually be told from his perspective. Instead, the story will be told from the eyes of a KGB officer who was apparently keeping a close eye on the future president as far back as when he was serving as the Screen Actors Guild president and taking a staunch anti-communist stance. At this time, the project doesn't have a either a co-star for David Henrie or a filmmaker attached to helm the movie.
David Henrie is likely best known for his part on the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place, though that series ended three years ago. More recently he has turned more of his attention towards film work, and has now worked with Kevin James three - first on 2013's Grown Ups 2, and then more recently for the upcoming Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and the drama Little Boy. He's also completed work on Cardboard Boxer with Thomas Hayden Church and the Walt Disney bio-pic Walt Before Mickey.
While Reagan will be the first time that a biopic is made about the 40th President of the United States, this is far from the first time that he has been portrayed on the big screen. Just recently it was Alan Rickman playing the part opposite Jane Fonda's Nancy Reagan in Lee Daniels' The Butler:
Within the last year Michael Douglas also signed on to play Ronald Reagan in Baltasar Kormákur's Reykjavik - a film about the famed 1986 summit - but that film is still in pre-production, and will obviously show a much different portion of Reagan's life than the movie starring David Henrie.
Howard Klausner, who is best known for writing the old-guy-astronaut movie Space Cowboys, wrote Reagan's script, though at this time it is unknown when the film might go into production. Presumably the next step will be either finding someone to play David Henrie's KGB co-star, or finding someone to helm the movie.
