Oliver Stone's new film,W, portrays George Bush as a foul-mouthed, dried-out drunk with a baseball obsession and a difficult relationship with his father.

Filming is expected to begin any day in Louisiana. The movie should be in cinemas before Mr Bush leaves office next January.

Stone says the film won't be an anti-Bush polemic. Rather, as he told Daily Variety, it will be "a fair, true portrait of the man that asks the question: how did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?"

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An early script describes Mr Bush as a party animal living in the shadow of his esteemed father before he uses religion to turn his life around. He finds a new purpose in life – which is to achieve the presidency ahead of his brother Jeb, who was being groomed for high office by his father.

The film will cover Mr Bush's obsession with invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein – which Stone suggests is to avenge the Iraqi leader's much ballyhooed assassination attempt on Bush Snr.

It will also look at Mr Bush's desperate hunt for WMDs in Iraq and his well known mangling of the English language. The script gives the impression that the White House is Mr Bush's very own fraternity house where discussions about going to war sound like the staff are betting on a football game.

The film will capture notorious episodes including his arrest for tearing down the goalposts at a college football game, his widely reported threat to get into a fistfight with his father when he came home drunk in the 1970s, and how he quit drinking after his 40th birthday when he woke up with a hangover and marching orders from his wife.

Mr Bush will be played by Josh Brolin, who starred in the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men. Laura Bush is being played by Elizabeth Banks, who starred in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

This is Stone's third film about a US president, following Nixon and JFK. The director has been an outspoken critic of President Bush's policy in Iraq.

W: the cast list so far

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Josh Brolin George W Bush

Elizabeth Banks Laura Bush

James Cromwell George H Bush

Thandie Newton Condoleezza Rice

Ioan Gruffudd Tony Blair

Ellen Burstyn Barbara Bush