Post by JangoB on Feb 16, 2024 0:12:09 GMT
deadline.com/2024/02/ridley-scott-bee-gees-movie-1235827580/
With their Bob Marley movie, One Love, opening this weekend, Paramount Pictures is now moving fast on another high profile biopic on popular music group, looking to have found an A-list director to lead the project. While a deal isn’t done, sources tell Deadline that Ridley Scott is in negotiations to direct the untitled Bee Gees movie for Paramount. Scott will produce alongside producing partner Michael Pruss of Scott Free, Graham King through his GK Films banner and Stacey Snider.
Paramount Pictures is distributing the film worldwide with Amblin and SISTER having the right to co-finance. Barry Gibb is executive producing. John Logan wrote the script.
While this isn’t the typical film Scott is known for, several factors came into play that led to the studio pursuing him, and the Oscar-nominated director agreeing to come aboard. First, Scott recently wrapped production on the sequel to his smash hit Gladiator and, according to sources, early footage has blown execs away. He is known for finding his follow-up projects quickly, and once production wrapped last month the studio was quick to get the latest draft of the Bee Gees film in front before he found that next movie.
As for Scott, the director has a long-standing link to the legendary group going back to when he was trying to launch his directing career. That connection is the group’s longtime manager at the time Robert Stigwood, the music mogul who had been managing the group since the 1960s and played a big part in its resurgence in the ’70s during the disco era while at the same time getting into the movie producing business. Stigwood would put Scott on the medieval film Castle Accident that would star the band’s three brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice. Ultimately the film never came together (Scott would go on to direct The Duellists instead), but that desire to tell some sort of story with the group remained, and now nearly 50 years later Scott has that chance.
Paramount Pictures is distributing the film worldwide with Amblin and SISTER having the right to co-finance. Barry Gibb is executive producing. John Logan wrote the script.
While this isn’t the typical film Scott is known for, several factors came into play that led to the studio pursuing him, and the Oscar-nominated director agreeing to come aboard. First, Scott recently wrapped production on the sequel to his smash hit Gladiator and, according to sources, early footage has blown execs away. He is known for finding his follow-up projects quickly, and once production wrapped last month the studio was quick to get the latest draft of the Bee Gees film in front before he found that next movie.
As for Scott, the director has a long-standing link to the legendary group going back to when he was trying to launch his directing career. That connection is the group’s longtime manager at the time Robert Stigwood, the music mogul who had been managing the group since the 1960s and played a big part in its resurgence in the ’70s during the disco era while at the same time getting into the movie producing business. Stigwood would put Scott on the medieval film Castle Accident that would star the band’s three brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice. Ultimately the film never came together (Scott would go on to direct The Duellists instead), but that desire to tell some sort of story with the group remained, and now nearly 50 years later Scott has that chance.
