No way. Is Clint Eastwood directing another DIRTY HARRY movie????

By Matt Holmes / June 25, 2011

You know yesterday when we said Clint Eastwood was pushing through a secret movie titled Gran Torino which many believed had already begun production without word of the cast, crew or even the plot making it out in the trades, or elsewhere? Well the truth is out there now and it's the last thing I would ever have thought of. A reader has sent AICN the scoop that it's going to be a new Dirty Harry movie...

Can it be true? Here's that letter to AICN...

Nobody seems to know €“ not even the trades €“ what Clint Eastwood€™s new movie, Gran Torino, is€. So I€™ll tell you. 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. So there you have it. Hope that helps. On with the show, Kurt, North Hollywood.

Clint Eastwood hasn't done a Dirty Harry movie for twenty years, his last movie as the popular dirty cop was in 1988 with The Dead Pool which as far as 5th movies in a cinematic franchise go it wasn't all bad. It's better and more respectful to the character for example than Rocky V or A Nightmare on Elm Street 5. Though Eastwood was looking old in 1988. He's frikkin' 78 in May. And he looks it too, even if he has kept himself in shape. Having said that of course, the Dirty Harry character could be a fascinating character to see in this modern age. If this is true, it's reminiscent of John Wayne and his last movie The Shootist (which was always seen as Wayne's version of Harry - after he was the original choice for the role of Harry Callaghan but he turned them down).

One thing that immediately comes to mind is Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood's revisionist Western movie of the early 90's which found so much power and gravitas in a darker take on The Man With No Name which Eastwood made a phenomenon in the 60's with Sergio Leone. Is Eastwood going to do this kind of thing with Harry? Is this going to be a dark, brooding, revisionist... very much Paul Haggis style, Dirty Harry movie? Certainly his last movies Million Dollar Baby and his two Iwo Jima movies AND Unforgiven would fit this. Stallone's done it (twice), Willis, Murphy is wanting to do it, Indy of course. Everyone is doing it. Maybe it's just human nature for Eastwood to be attempting this. Though I wouldn't take this story as verbatim just yet. It's kinda hard to believe that a Hollywood studio would let the cat out of the bag so easily to a guy selling them a damn car but hey, stranger things have happened. But then everything seems like it fits. Eastwood's last movies have been moving towards this, as have the actors from the 70's and 80's era. The title fits, the secrecy fits, the studio (WB) fits. So Dirty Harry 6 in December, can you believe it?