Variety - - Brett Ratner is set to direct "Playboy," the Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment film about the life of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Brian Grazer is producing, and John Hoffman is writing the screenplay. Grazer optioned Hefner's life rights several years ago. The producer's "8 Mile" scribe Scott Silver tried it as a musical, and Oliver Stone developed several drafts. Making a film of Hefner's long life as icon of the sexual revolution has proven difficult, but Ratner and Hoffman found a way to do it that pleased Grazer and the 81-year-old Hefner, who approved the take late last week in a meeting at the Playboy Mansion.

Did Hef really approve this or did he figure if they don't start filming soon he'll be dead by the time they finally find a production group he likes. Hef's story could have a chance to be a pretty good movie if they did it like Boogie Nights or Blow. The problem is that if Hef is behind the scenes on this one there is no chance they'll have a scene in his bedroom where he has 6 girlfriends go at it while another one screws him in the ass with a carrot (as ex-girlfriends have suggested happened). And since he's currently banging Kendra and the other two, they won't have the "downfall" finale like you see in so many of these bio-pics...Why don't they just remake Penthouse's Caligula (video link NSFW)?