> > November 26 - Australia
> >
> > His biography of Howard Hughes was aborted when
> > Martin Scorsese came out with his own.
>
> I believe it was actually an Alexander the Great biography...

Quite right! I got my wires crossed. It's Christopher Nolan that had a Howard Hughes biopic in the works when The Aviator was greenlit.

> ...which is even sadder, because the only thing worse than being upstaged by a great movie from a great director is being upstaged by a bad movie by a mediocre director.

You make a great and grimly funny point here. But I can't say I'm terribly distraught over either. Anything Nolan or Luhrmann do catches my immediate attention, but of all things I'd like to see them do, historical biographies have to be pretty near the bottom of the list.