HBO to Make Movie on 2008 Election

The presidential election is coming to the small screen.

HBO will make a film based on the landmark 2008 election, featuring larger-than-life political characters like Sarah Palin, John McCain and President Barack Obama, the network announced this week.

The film will be based on the book "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," by Time magazine editor-at-large Mark Halperin and New York magazine political correspondent John Heilemann.

It will focus on the personalities behind the 2008 election -- Halperin is an acquaintance of Sarah Palin's, and Heilemann knew Obama from Harvard University, Variety magazine reported.

"Focusing on those characters went to the essence of why this was the campaign of a lifetime, not just for the candidates, but for the country," Halperin told Variety.

"Blood Diamond" writer Charles Leavitt will write the screenplay for the flick, set to debut on HBO sometime after the Harper Collins book is published early next year.

Leavitt said the movie would resemble a "stage play," like the film versions of "Frost/Nixon" and "The Queen."

"To me, the primary was one of the greatest title fights of the century," Leavitt said.

The film will look behind-the-scenes of the McCain and Obama campaigns, showing the election from the viewpoint of the candidates and their staffs, according to Variety.

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