Aaron Eckhart & Gerard Butler Protect The White House In OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

Aaron Eckhart will play the President of the United States, and Gerard Butler will act as his loyal protector in the action/thriller Olympus Has Fallen. Antoine Fuqua will direct the film, which has been described as ‘Die Hard in the White House‘. If you’ve got a strange feeling of Déjà vu – don’t worry, it’s probably because it sounds incredibly like the recently announced White House Down.

Both Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down deal with terrorist attacks on the White House, with a lone secret service agent defending the Commander-in-Chief. White House Down will feature Channing Tatum protecting Jamie Foxx’s President, with Maggie Gyllenhaal helping out along the way.

White House Down will be directed by infamous White House destroyer Roland Emmerich, from a script by James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man). It’s probably safe to assume that Emmerich’s film will be more of an across the board crowd-pleaser, while Fuqua’s film will likely have more grit and violence (going from his past cinematic efforts like Training Day). Warner Bros. is also developing a comedic President/bodyguard adventure called El Presidente, which may team Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr.

It’s not the first time that two similarly themed Hollywood movies have gone head-to-head. 1991 saw two Robin Hood films competing for audience attention. Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves got most of the glory (and the box office), while the lower budget, Robin Hood (starring Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman) ended up premiering on television in the US. Two fiery volcano movies duked it out for box office supremacy in 1997, when Dante’s Peak and Volcano were released. Dante’s Peak with Pierce Brosnan achieved more success grossing $178 million globally, while Volcano failed to ignite much interest. In 1998 both A Bug’s Life and Antz showed that insect animation was on the Hollywood agenda, while the same year also saw competing asteroid disaster movies. Armageddon proved to be more successful than the po-faced Deep Impact, although they were both very profitable – maybe audiences didn’t want to miss a thing. This year it was all about Snow White – as both Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman were released just months apart.

Sony Pictures’ White House Down is expected to start filming this summer, while Millennium Films’ Olympus Has Fallen is scheduled to go before cameras in September.

Okay, two questions:

1. Who would you vote for in a Presidential Election – Aaron Eckhart or Jamie Foxx?
2. Who would you rather have as your protector – Gerard Butler or Channing Tatum?

Source: Variety via Screen Rant