Best/Favorite/Future Biopics

[MacGuffin]

This sounds no good. It really sounds like it'll piss RK off

yeah...
Matthew Wilder?  the musician?

Seems like if they wanted to make a movie about PKD, they'd just just give Valis to Kaufman to adapt... and Bill Pullman?  Why not just get fuckin Keanu again would probably be just as weak.

also... I didn't HATE Scanner

Giamatti to Play Sci-Fi Author Philip K. Dick
Source: Variety

Paul Giamatti is in talks to star as sci-fi author Philip K. Dick in an untitled biopic that his newly launched Touchy Feely Films is producing with Anonymous Content, reports Variety.

The authorized biopic also is being produced by the Philip K. Dick Estate through its Electric Shepherd Productions. Tony Grisoni (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) will write the screenplay.

Dick, who died in 1982, wrote more than four dozen books and numerous short stories, with at least seven being adapted for the big screen, including Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report. A Scanner Darkly is in theaters now.

The nontraditional biopic will interweave the prolific author's life with his fiction and incorporate elements of his last unfinished novel, "The Owl in Daylight."

[RegularKarate]

Giamatti to Play Sci-Fi Author Philip K. Dick
The nontraditional biopic will interweave the prolific author's life with his fiction and incorporate elements of his last unfinished novel, "The Owl in Daylight."

THAT'S a lot more like it.  As long as they don't try to make Giamatti too silly it could work.

[MacGuffin]

THAT'S a lot more like it.  As long as they don't try to make Giamatti too silly it could work.

Source: Cinematical

Okay, so now that we know there are two Philip K. Dick biopics in the works, the question becomes: Which one will garner more heat? So far, according to reports, one (Panasonic) has Bill Pullman in the lead role and the other (The Owl in Daylight) has Paul Giamatti. The screenplay for Panasonic is already complete, though Daylight's script still needs to be written. However, while Panasonic has a very random director in Matthew Wilder attached, word from the guys at film ick has it Terry Gilliam has come on to direct Owl in Daylight. Gilliam is reportedly co-writing the movie, which looks to have cut to the front of the line of the many other projects on his plate.

[RegularKarate]

word from the guys at film ick has it Terry Gilliam has come on to direct Owl in Daylight. Gilliam is reportedly co-writing the movie, which looks to have cut to the front of the line of the many other projects on his plate.

A little too good to be true.. either the Pullman will Pull through, man... and I'll just hate it that much more... or Gilliam will make it and whatever evil magic caused him to make Grimm will strike again and it will suck.

[MacGuffin]

Gyllenhaal's along for the ride

Cycling legend Lance Armstrong has privately confirmed speculation that Jake Gyllenhaal will portray him in a biopic.

He told sources at ESPN that Matthew McConaughey had been up to play the part, but lost out to Gyllenhaal.

"He said that's why he has been spending so much time with them both this summer," said the source.

Armstrong, who won the Tour de France a record seven times, hosted ESPN's ESPY Awards last month.

[MacGuffin]

Wood to star as Iggy Pop
Gomez directs 'Passenger'
Source: Variety

CANNES — Former Hobbit Elijah Wood is to star as Iggy Pop in "The Passenger," a biopic of the legendary rocker.

Pic is to be exec produced by Ted Hope's This Is That Prods. and Traction Media, and repped in international territories by Oz-U.K. sales firm Becker Intl., which in Cannes is handling Directors Fortnight title "Control," about Brit band Joy Division. Traction Media will handle rights in North America.

"Passenger," which follows Pop's early years with his band the Stooges, is to be helmed by Nick Gomez ("Drowning Mona") from a script by Eric Schmid.

Pic will lense in next six months and is skedded for delivery by midsummer 2008. The $6 million-$8 million budget is being put together from a combination of pre-sales, a U.S. equity fund and tax credits from Philadelphia.

Pop has "given his blessing" to the project but will not take part in it, according to Becker's head of finance and operations Jonathan Page.

[MacGuffin]

Tautou will channel Coco Chanel
Fontaine will helm the yet to be titled pic
Source: Variety

Audrey Tautou will star as Coco Chanel in a $15 million biopic about the legendary French fashion designer.

Anne Fontaine will helm the yet to be titled pic, with French shingles Haut et Court and Cine @ producing. Films Distribution is handling international sales.

The film, which will focus on Chanel's childhood and early womanhood, was specially conceived with Tautou in mind, said Haut et Court's Caroline Benjo.

"Anne said she would only make a film about Chanel if Audrey was in the lead. They met and both liked the idea."

Script, penned by Fontaine and Christopher Hampton, who is also creative consultant, was freely adapted from the Chanel biography "L'Irreguliere" by Edmonde Charles-Roux.

Pic is slated to shoot early in 2008.

A French thesp will play Etienne Balsan and an A-list Brit actor is being sought to play Englishman Arthur "Boy" Capel, two men in Chanel's life when she was still a young unknown.

Said Benjo: "It isn't really a biopic because it is about Chanel before she became famous, it is about the events and people that shaped her."

The woman who invented French chic was born into poverty as Gabrielle Chanel, the illegitimate daughter of a traveling salesman, in 1883. After the death of her mother and abandonment by her father she spent seven years in a Catholic orphanage, where she learned to sew. But fashion wasn't her first career choice. As a young woman, Chanel had ambitions to be a singer and it was while warbling "Who's Seen Coco in the Trocadero" in a cabaret that she acquired the nickname Coco.

While working as a cabaret singer, she also took to sewing the stage clothes for the likes of French cabaret star Mistinguette before being taken under the wing wealthy Balsan. His chateau became Chanel's home and her gateway to a new life.

Balsan introduced her to Capel, who played a crucial role in Chanel's rise to fashion fame and fortune.

There are two other French Chanel project the works.

William Friedkin will helm one focused on the fashion diva's relationship with Stravinsky, with "Lady Chatterley" thesp Marina Hands playing Chanel. Daniele Thompson is also writing a Chanel project.

[MacGuffin]

Paul Giamatti Blurs Reality For Philip K. Dick Biopic 'Owl In Daylight'
Source: MTV

"Total Recall," "Blade Runner," "Minority Report," "Paycheck" – for years Hollywood has mined the twisted tales of science-fiction author Philip K. Dick to craft blockbuster movies. Now, seemingly, it's the author's own life that's all the rage.

While "Your Name Here," an unlicensed biography starring Bill Pullman and Taryn Manning, eyes a Sundance debut, Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti is setting his sights on a competing Dick project, titled "The Owl in Daylight."

"There's a guy writing a script right now," Giamatti told us.

The "The Owl in Daylight," which Dick was unable to finish before his death in 1982, is a complicated tale that involves Ed Firmley, a B-movie composer, a race of aliens that have evolved without the ability to hear sounds, and our deeply held believes about art, happiness, and, oh yeah, heaven. You know, light stuff.

But if reading the wiki synopsis makes the story sound complicated, that's nothing compared to how Giamatti and Co. are handling Dick's life – as a sort of Charlie Kauffman-esque experiment in blurring fiction and reality.

"The idea is to take one of his last stories and put him as a character in the story," Giamatti revealed. "A lot of his stories were about reality getting bent around, so we're trying to do that."

We've long been a fan of the author, but what's with the sudden fascination into his life?

"Well he was mentally ill in a lot of ways and he had lots of problems; he was married many times, was paranoid about a lot of things," Giamatti explained. "Strange guy. He had a very interesting, complicated life."

[Pubrick]

But if reading the wiki synopsis makes the story sound complicated

haha, how do i get a job writing for mtv news? i love their style. so lazy. they're like a rug on valium.

oh, and the news of a PKD bio is quite excellent. watch out, giamatti's got a knife! and he's pkd!

i'd go see that.

[MacGuffin]

Gyllenhaal tapped for Namath film
'Zodiac' star to play Hall of Fame quarterback
Source: Variety

Universal Pictures will turn the life of Joe Namath into a feature film, with Jake Gyllenhaal playing the Hall of Fame quarterback.

David Hollander will write the script once the writers strike is over. Mad Chance's Andrew Lazar will produce. Jimmy Walsh, who runs Namanco Prods., exec produces.

Walsh said he and Namath OK'd the movie after a long pursuit by Lazar, a strong take by Hollander and the belief that the athletic Gyllenhaal was the right actor to play him.

While other quarterbacks racked up bigger lifetime stats, Namath became the first football player to achieve rock-star status. The pic will tell the story of how the golden-armed kid from Beaver Falls, Pa., became Broadway Joe, the New York Jets quarterback who became a '60s cultural figure.

When Namath emerged from Bear Bryant's football program at the U. of Alabama, the upstart American Football League was the stepchild to the powerhouse National Football League. Sonny Werblin, who'd left MCA after the Justice Dept. broke up Lew Wasserman's company, knew the value of star power and was determined to use it when he bought the Jets. He outbid the NFL, paid Namath a record $400,000 salary and turned him loose on New York. The handsome nonconformist became a sensation, on the field, in nightclubs and on Madison Avenue as the first star to become a magnet for commercials.

After backing up his guarantee that the Jets would beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, Namath put the AFL on equal footing with the NFL, paved the way to a merger and helped establish football as a TV sport. He accomplished all of this on knees so bad that draft board doctors refused to send him to Vietnam for fear that they would give out on the battlefield.

"Most of the stuff you saw in 'Forest Gump,' Joe lived through all of it," said Walsh, who first met Namath on the Alabama campus and has worked with him ever since. They witnessed the struggle for civil rights in Alabama, the sexual revolution and Vietnam.

Gyllenhaal, who is coming off "Rendition" and "Zodiac," is currently shooting the Jim Sheridan-directed "Brothers" with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman and will follow that by teaming with Doug Liman on an untitled project at DreamWorks that revolves around a moon expedition.

[Pubrick]

"Most of the stuff you saw in 'Forest Gump,' Joe lived through all of it,"

yeah, wow, along with AN ENTIRE GENERATION.

anyway, i hope they have time to cover one of the greatest crises of his life..



vapor lock.

[Gold Trumpet]

"Most of the stuff you saw in 'Forest Gump,' Joe lived through all of it,"

yeah, wow, along with AN ENTIRE GENERATION.

anyway, i hope they have time to cover one of the greatest crises of his life..



vapor lock.

Come on, his most memorable moment as of late has to got to be this...

[matt35mm]

Yeah, Pubrick, come on!

[MacGuffin]

Universal goes for 'Gainsbourg'
Film is studio's first French-language project
Source: Variety

Universal's first local-language French pic will be based on the life of Gaul's iconic singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, who died in 1991.

"Serge Gainsbourg (vie heroique)" will mark graphic novelist Joann Sfar's debut as a helmer.

Eric Elmosnino has been tapped to play the chanteur who was as famous for his glamorous lovers, including Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, as he was for penning such hits as "Je t'aime ... moi non plus."

French model Laetitia Casta will play Bardot, with Mylene Jampanoi set to play Gainsbourg's last paramour, Bambou, and Anna Mouglalis tapped to play French singer Juliette Greco, who collaborated with Gainsbourg for many years.

Pic will trace Gainsbourg from his youth growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris, when he was called Lucien Ginsberg, through to his transformation into the hard-living showman. He died in 1991 at age 62.

Pic starts lensing Jan. 19 in Paris for 13 weeks. Universal Pictures Intl. Studio is co-producing with Studio 37, the production banner of French telco giant Orange.

One World Films' Marc du Pontavice and Didier Lupfer are producing, with Sfar also penning the screenplay.

"Joann Sfar's cutting-edge creativity and unique take on the character of Serge Gainsbourg is what really drew us to this project," said Universal Pictures Intl. Studio prexy Christian Grass.

U will retain French theatrical and homevideo rights to the pic, which will be released in France in 2010.

Studio 37 gets the international rights, which will be handled by Kinology. Since launching in February, Universal Pictures Intl. Studio has been ramping up its local-language activities under Grass. The studio announced in May that it was co-funding Pedro Almodovar's "Broken Embraces," which reunites the Spanish helmer with muse Penelope Cruz.

UPI, along with Focus Features, is also co-funding Korean helmer Park Chan-wook's vampire pic "Thirst."

[Stefen]

Fuck yeah. Histoire de Melody Nelson is an awesome album. One of my faves. It oozes sexiness.