Brett Ratner Developing Hugh Hefner Biopic (But Only for the Articles)

What is Brett Ratner if not the Hugh Hefner of major Hollywood film producer-directors? While I may not actually know what that comparison’s supposed to mean, I’ve made it anyway, and now here we are discussing the gestating biopic of the Playboy founder and world-renowned boob connoisseur. It’s true, Deadline reports, that the director of the acclaimed Tower Heist and head of power production house RatPac has begun making moves on a chronicle of Hefner’s randy life and times, but Ratner wants to find the man behind the pull-out centerfold panels.

Everyone knows Hefner as the face of Playboy, equal parts shrewd publishing magnate and America’s pervy uncle. Ratner hopes his film will suss out some deeper meaning from the man’s extraordinary life, examining him as a force of culture and sign of the times. The Deadline item claims that the film will track Hefner’s evolution in his early years, as he made the jump from a cloistered Methodist home to the big, bad world of nudie mags. Hef was the first to reveal an unclothed Marilyn Monroe, but beyond placating the nation’s more hairy-palmed readers, he also ran trenchant interview pieces, offered pointed cultural criticism, and did what he could to refute the stigma against sexuality in our Puritan-descended nation.

He‘s got a pretty rich life story, but the key to conveying it would be to remain focused on what he represents without taking too much time to ogle the scenery, ifyaknowhaddamean. Think back to last summer’s ill-fated War Dogs — a film with aspirations to satirize the D-bags who profiteer off war, which then got distracted by how totally rad it would be to live as one of those very same D-bags. Take caution when gazing into the D-bag, Brett Ratner, for the D-bag gazes also.