Based on a shocking and horrific true story, Changeling details the disappearance of young Walter Collins, and the scandal that ensued when the LAPD returned a wayward boy in his place.

Take a look at the trailer below.

Changeling starts Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, and Pop Critics favorite Jeffrey Donovan and premieres November 7.

Changeling is set in 1920s Los Angeles and stars Angelina Jolie in a true story about a woman whose son disappears. Months later the police tell her they’ve found him – only she claims it isn’t her son. Eastwood directed from a script by J. Michael Straczynski. The film also stars John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, and Michael Kelly.

Changeling made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival where the French title of the film was “The Exchange.” That title prompted speculation that Universal might be considering a name change for the film, but Universal and Eastwood have both they’re sticking with the original title.

By opening in only a few select markets at the heart of awards season on October 24, Universal will hope to build buzz off positive reviews.

As we told you the other day, Spike Lee is upset with Eastwood for not putting black actors in his WWII movies, Flags Of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. In response to Lee’s racist-tinted accusations against him, Eastwood said that “A guy like him should shut his face.”

Well, Spike Lee started talking some more. ABCNews.com was able to get this response from Lee:

“First of all, the man is not my father and we’re not on a plantation either,” he told ABCNEWS.com. “He’s a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn’t personally attack him. And a comment like ‘a guy like that should shut his face’ — come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there.”

Lee has a proposal for Eastwood:

“If he wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima and I’d like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist,” he said. “I’m not making this up. I know history. I’m a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to World War II.”

So Spike Lee put Clint Eastwood in his place, right? He basically said, “hey, you ain’t my daddy or my master so you can’t tell me what to do.” A tad racist, but accurate, I suppose. He also called Clint out for being an angry old man. Of course, I’d be angry too if I had to defend myself against these kinds of “history experts.”

Concerning the black soldiers at Iwo Jima, Eastwood fired back at Lee and told Focus Magazine this (Newsbusters):

“Does he know anything about American history?” Eastwood told Focus when asked about Lee’s criticism. “The U.S. military was segregated til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated. The only black battalion on Iwo Jima was a small munitions supply unit that came to the beach.

“The story was about the men who raised the flag and we can’t make them black if they were not there. So tell him: Why don’t you go back and study your history and stop mouthing off!”

Where I once thought Spike Lee was just dredging up controversy to sell his black soldiers in WWII film, Miracle At St. Anna, I now think he’s just a little ignorant.

I’ve always thought he was racist.

Here is the poster for Lee’s film:

It all started at the Cannes film festival where Spike Lee got his panties all in a wad over Clint Eastwood’s portrayal (or non-portrayal) of black people in Eastwood’s highly acclaimed films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. Lee had this to say at the time:

“There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in the films]. That was his version: the negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version.

“Here’s the paradox,” he said. “These African-American men wanted to fight against fascism in the name of democracy. At the same time, they were still second-class citizens.” Although Lee emphasized his respect for Eastwood as a film-maker, he claimed that the director had been told of the African-Americans who fought at Iwo Jima, and had chosen to ignore that “information”.

Lee’s “different version,” which he mentions in the quote, is his film Miracle At St. Anna which chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II. That film is set to hit theaters on October 10.

Well, Eastwood didn’t comment on what Lee said at the time, but he has since given an interview to The Guardian in which he said plenty:

“The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn’t do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people’d go: ‘This guy’s lost his mind.’ I mean, it’s not accurate.” Referring to Lee, he added: “A guy like him should shut his face.”

Come on! You gotta love Eastwood! He just told Spike Lee to SHUT HIS FACE! That’s freakin’ awesome! That article mentions that Clint once also said that he would kill Michael Moore if he showed up uninvited to his house.

Eastwood wasn’t done with Lee yet, though. He had plenty more to say:

Defending the racial make-up in his films as historically accurate, Eastwood referred to another of his films, Changeling, which was set in Los Angeles before the city had a large group of African-Americans. “What are you going to do, you going to tell a fuckin’ story about that?” he said. “Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I’m not in that game. I’m playing it the way I read it historically, and that’s the way it is. When I do a movie and it’s 90% black, like Bird, then I use 90% black people.

“He was complaining when I did Bird (the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker). Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that’s why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else.”

Eastwood’s next project, The Human Factor, will be about Nelson Mandela’s attempts to foster national unity in post-apartheid South Africa. Asked if he would remain historically accurate with depictions of the former president, he said: “I’m not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy.”

In fact, Morgan Freeman, who actually brought Human Factor to Eastwood, will be playing Nelson Mandela in that film. Matt Damon also recently joined the cast.

The Anthony Peckham scripted drama is an adaptation of John Carlin’s book “The Human Factor: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Changed the World.”

Damon will play rugby star Francois Pienaar, who created, with Nelson Mandela (played by Freeman), an event that gave whites and blacks in South Africa a common cause to rally around as the country was trying to heal from the wounds of apartheid.

Freeman was the moving force behind this production. After receiving Mandela’s blessing, Freeman took the project to his pal Clint Eastwood and to WB where Eastwood has his production deal.

Eastwood will make this his next project after he finishes Gran Torino (you know, the project that’s not a Dirty Harry film).

Damon just wrapped the untitled Paul Greengrass directed drama for Universal based on “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” and he’s currently starring for Steven Soderbergh in The Informant for Warner Bros. He plans to rest up in the fall and make Human Factor his next starring role.

FilmJerk posted a nice little article outlining why they think Gran Torino will not be Dirty Harry 6. They also provide the plot synopsis for the film they think it will actually be.

…this will be a simple, quiet and compelling drama about Walt (Eastwood), a rural bigot who finds his outlook on life changed after a family of Hmong immigrants move in to the home next to his own, striking up a friendship with the family’s teenaged son Tao over the older man’s now-classic car.

I tend to think that FilmJerk probably has it more right than all those other rumors. The Dirty Harry thing just doesn’t sound like something Eastwood would be interested in doing right now while an Oscar type drama is exactly what you would expect from him. That’s not to say I’m not a little disappointed. I think a Dirty Harry film could have been a lot of fun. Still, I think I’d rather see Hollywood do something new than continue to redo and reimagine old properties.

What do you think? Does this plot sound more plausible than Dirty Harry 6? Would you be disappointed if this turned out to be true?

Well, today, IESB.net published an email from someone claiming that Gran Torino will actually be the return of “Dirty” Harry Callahan in a sixth film in the franchise. The emailer said:

I recently advertised my 1974 ford grand torino classic original for sale in the local here, and within 24 hours had someone from Village Roadshow Pictures interested in having a look at it. He came. He wasn’t interested for numerous reasons (probably the modifications). He told me they were looking for the right car for a new Clint Eastwood movie.

He said it was a thriller about a killer that drives a certain torino. His 1972 Ford Gran Torino is the only thing the police have on him. A retired police lieutenant, one Harry Callahan, makes it his mission to track down the culprit when two young police officers, one Callahan’s grandson, are shot and killed by the guy.

This is all completely unsubstantiated, of course. It does seem like an interesting idea, but we have to look at the fact that it’s been 20 years since Eastwood has played Dirty Harry and he’s like 78 years old. I’m not sure if a Dirty Harry kind of picture is really his thing these days.

Having said that, however, I think it would be pretty huge if he were to do it. Eastwood is such a great filmmaker now that I have no doubt the film would be completely fantastic. Add in the recognition of the Dirty Harry character and the story line as outlined above and I think you’d have the makings of a pretty big hit.

Somewhere Sylvester Stallone’s got his agent on the phone trying to see if he can get a part.

So what do you think? Would you line up to see a new Dirty Harry movie with a 78 year old Clint Eastwood? Would that make your day? Well, would it…punk?