Biopic

This story should get all nerd boners to full mast, much like your mom after her nightly feeding. Not sure that came out right. Either way looks like Hollywood might have accidentally gone and done some awesome as Sacha Baron Cohen has signed on to star as legendary Queen frontman and bicycle aficionado Freddie Mercury, with historical screenwriter extraordinaire Peter Morgan set to write the script.

Put on some stretch pants and hit some incredibly high notes Deadline:

GK’s King confirmed the Queen deal: “Queen is one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and a music brand all unto itself,” he said in a statement. “Freddie Mercury was an awe-inspiring performer, so with Sacha in the starring role coupled with Peter’s screenplay and the support of Queen, we have the perfect combination to tell the real story behind their success.”

This is the first time the surviving members of Queen--Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon--have licensed songs and music publishing rights for a movie about the band and they formed Queen Films to be part of the production team on the film.

Well then, this project sounds about as promising as a film with no director can. Some might be scared of Cohen's mostly ridiculous resume but it's worth noting his success is based on his incredible ability to completely inhabit a character, which is utterly necessary for any chance of success at playing a persona as strong as Mercury's. The film's script is said to focus on the band's formative years leading up to their Live Aid performance in 1985 which you can catch some of below.

There haven't been too many movie updates to the site recently because I sort of got tired of writing about remakes of movies I liked when I was a kid, but we're inching towards the good part of the year, a new PTA film looms on the horizon, and there's some legitimately super hella awesome news floating around the interwebs today. Jody Savin and Randall Miller recently announced a new film called The Drummer about one of my favorite people ever. Here's the synopsis currently listed on IMDB.

The Drummer is the story of this inimitably talented but perennially disparaged man, the only true surfer of The Beach Boys and one of the truly original voices in Rock & Roll history. Intimate and personal, the story tracks the last six years of Beach Boys drummer's life, the younger brother to front man Brian, as he evolves into a creative force. Dennis Wilson digs his way out from under the shadow of his tyrannical father, corrals the demons and harnesses the will to tap his own artistry in order to create the critically applauded Pacific Ocean Blue. The film starts in the midst of The Beach Boys' fame and follows Dennis' journey, replete with decadence, drugs, love and tragedy. Despite Dennis' fall into drugs and alcohol, ultimately it is his music and his uniquely magnanimous spirit that endures.

This is just really great news. Brian will always be the "genius" of the Wilson boys, and Carl is one of my favorite vocalists of all time, but Dennis had quite a bit more musical ability than he is often credited with and it's nice to see someone hopefully bringing that to the masses. Pacific Ocean Blue is an often overlooked gem, and it recently received the reissue treatment along with the inclusion of Wilson's previously unreleased follow up Bambu.

Unfortunately like so many others, Dennis Wilson fell prey to his demons. At the age of 39 he drowned in Marina Del Rey harbor after a day of drinking back in 1983. As if that wasn't tragic enough Wilson is reported to have jumped in the water to retrieve some possessions he had thrown overboard from his boat a few years before. The good news is it seems like Miller, who directed 2008's Bottle Shock, has a good grasp of his subject.

"Dennis was a pained and tortured soul, yet brilliant and loved dearly by so many who knew him," says Miller. "This film has the makings of a tour-de-force performance in the hands of the right actor. As a director, I search for stories that expose the soul of a character in new territories that excite me as a filmmaker."

Looks like biopics are the new remakes as it certainly feels like I've been reporting on them quite a bit.  Pretty soon we're going to have a biopic of a celebrity played by that same celebrity, featuring a soundtrack with the celebrity actually singing, produced by T Bone Burnett of course.  Either way I'm guessing that this new Jackie Kennedy biopic will not have much singing as it is said to focus exclusively on the day's after the JFK assassination up until his burial.  Don't worry, no one is trying to capitalize on tragedy here.

The film is based on a spec script by Noah Oppenheim and will reportedly follow Kennedy during the four days between her husband infamous assassination and his burial, providing a new perspective to the story in showing the beloved Kennedy "at both her most vulnerable and her most graceful."

Titled "Jackie," the project was previously linked to Steven Spielberg and HBO however Aronofsky and Scott Franklin are now putting it together through their Protozoa Pictures shingle with CAA currently shopping it around major studios. The film will potentially be Aronofsky's first collaboration with Weisz since 2006's "The Fountain" and will be an interesting turn for the director, marking his first film about on a real life figure.   [via the playlist]

Aside from Hollywood regurgitating the same formulas over and over (remakes, biopics, romantic comedies, oh my) they can't spend any time coming up with an actual title either.  Jackie, Namath, Hoover, come on now.  Aronofsky is one of the best out there, Weisz is always outstanding, and the subject matter obviously will be of interest to movie goers, especially those that were alive during those tragic times.  Considering what the director's last character piece did for Mickey Rourke, and the respect many have for Jackie Kennedy, I wouldn't be shocked to see Aronofsky's real life fiance, the previously mentioned Weisz, take home a Best Actress Oscar.

Deadline is reporting that Tobey Maguire will star in the upcoming Bobby Fischer biopic Pawn Sacrifice.  The film will be directed by the awesome David Fincher based on a script by Steven Knight, who wrote Eastern Promises and will also be writing the script for the upcoming Robert Kennedy biopic starring Matt Damon.  The film is set to cover Fischer's life story up until the 1972 World Chess Championships where he defeated Russian Boris Spassky in what was essentially a real life Rocky IV Cold War battle. 

I can understand the decision to only go up until that moment of his life, but I'm not the biggest fan of the decision.  For those that are unfamiliar, calling Bobby Fischer quirky would be the understatement of the millenium.  Along with his ascension in the chess ranks came an insatiable ego, paranoia, and all the other fun stuff that happens with the cliched "troubled genius".  In a lot of ways you could say everything went downhill after the 1972 Championships eventually leading to a time where Fischer is living oversees as an anti-semitic and anti-American fugitive from the United States, which in turn led to him famously celebrating the 9/11 attacks as "what goes around comes around".

Up until his death in 2008 Fischer continued to live his life in seclusion while unrelenting on his hatred towards the United States.  It always seemed to me that Fischer clearly had some serious mental issues that, had he been born 40 years later, would have been classified and quite possibly quelled well before his life of seclusion.  At the same time all the analysis and subsequent attempts at behavior modification could quite possibly have changed the entire course of his historic chess career.

I guess that career, which could be argued was either the cause or escape from his possible insanity, will be the only focus here, as it was in his life.  We'll keep you updated.