Publisher George P. Putnam had ten years on Amelia Earhart when they married in 1931; Richard Gere, who will play Putnam in Mira Nair’s Amelia, has twenty-five on Hilary Swank. Put it this way: Gere could’ve been drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, while Swank was born a year after the signing of the Paris Peace Accord. In other words, they’re remarkably close in age for a Hollywood couple.

The idea of women pilots scares the shit out of me, so I’ve never done much reading on Ms. Earhart, who was evidently hand-picked by Putnam to become the first bitch to successfully undertake a transatlantic flight (in 1928). Several years after being ferried across the Ocean (Earhart wouldn’t make the trip by her lonesome until 1932),
Earhart married the recently divorced Putnam; their torrid, tempestuous union was reportedly the inspiration for Zalman King’s Wild Orchid.

Amelia will be based on a screenplay by Ron Bass, so it’s gonna suck. Much more promising is Gere’s other upcoming project, the Antoine Fuqua-directed cop drama Brooklyn’s Finest. Gere will play a straight-arrow cop who links up with a corrupt colleague and an undercover detective at a crime scene. The Michael Martin screenplay sounds like it will show how each man arrived at this climactic moment, which could be fascinating or terribly labored. Fuqua’s been kinda miss-and-miss since Training Day, so I’m tempering my expectations (even though I really dig the concept).

Amelia will begin shooting later this month, with Brooklyn’s Finest expected to follow.