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.

“The Matarese Circle,” revolves around two secret agents – an American and a Russian – who must work together to fight a mysterious group of killers known as the Matarese. The twist is (because there’s always a twist) the agents, Bradley Scofield and Vasili Taleniekov, have been nemeses for years and have a long and complicated history with one another, with each responsible for killing someone close to the other. Denzel Washington would be playing Bradley Scofield.

Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, the writers behind Lionsgate’s 3:10 to Yuma remake and the upcoming Universal summer tentpole, Wanted, are attached as writers. Veteran producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Nick Wechsler are on board as producers.

The reason the studios are so interested in this property has everything to do with a character by the name of Jason Bourne. Ludlum’s Bourne books were the basis for the movies starring Matt Damon that have now grossed more than $900M in worldwide box office. In fact, Universal is going forward with a fourth Bourne film despite the fact that Ludlum only wrote three Bourne books before he died. Two more were written by Eric Van Lustbader and published after Ludlum’s death, with a third Van Lustbader title expected in the summer.

“Matarese,” of course, could be attractive to studios seeking a new franchise. The property is the only other Ludlum creation to feature more than one novel; a second book, “The Matarese Countdown,” was published in 1997. Nearly all the major studios have heard at least a version of the pitch, with several thought to be extremely interested. No deal has yet been struck, but I would guess that it’s only a matter of time. This is about as close as it gets to a sure thing in Hollywood.

According to Variety.com, both Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass, the awesome team behind the Jason Bourne movies, have signed on to do a fourth with Universal.

That’s right…apparently all the talk of being finished with the series fell apart probably when they saw how much money they keep making with Bourne.

I for one don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand, having Jason Bourne back on the big screen, with the quality that has clearly been shown throughout the series, could be awesome. I’ve never been disappointed in any of these three movies, and the last one blew me away.

Now, the downside you have is ruining a perfect ending. Jason Bourne finds out the total and absolute truth about who he is at the end of Bourne Ultimatum, and swims off into the sunset. Where do you go from there? If you do a fourth, why not a fifth or sixth?

What do you guys think? Should the series keep going or does Bourne need to retire?

The film is based on the nonfiction book, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran which Greengrass and Brian Helgeland turned into the premise for this fictional thriller set in the “Green Zone,” a walled and fortified area where U.S. troops stay during the Iraqi occupation. It is, supposedly, behind this wall that out of touch leaders make flawed decisions that do no accurately reflect the realities of life in war-torn Iraq. (Hmmm…. wonder where this is going…)

Damon will be playing an officer who teams up with a senior CIA officer to search for those ever elusive weapons of mass destruction while Ryan plays a New York Times (of course) foreign correspondent sent to Iraq to “investigate” the U.S. government’s WMD claims. Kinnear will be playing a CIA officer. Antoni Corone has also been cast as a colonel.

Ryan is a hot commodity at the moment, coming off Ben Affleck’s critically acclaimed “Gone Baby Gone” for which she is receiving numerous award nominations. She is also set to appear in Clint Eastwood’s next film, “The Changeling.”

Kinnear, of course, is a Hollywood staple whose next film is the Marc Abraham directed “Flash of Genius” for followed by the comedy, “Baby Mama” and the just wrapped “Ghost Town.”