Paramount Studios have announced that Martin Scorsese, one of the most acclaimed living film directors, is developing a new movie about the life of the famed composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein. Scorsese will write and direct the film, working from a screenplay by Josh Singer.
No further details are yet available, but it could be a while before the Bernstein biopic is finished: Scorsese, 72, is as busy as ever. Among his upcoming projects are a movie adaptation of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City—starring Leonardo DiCaprio—and an HBO series set in the New York City record industry in the 1970s.
There will be plenty of material to work with in the long, dramatic, and sometimes controversial life of Bernstein (1918-1990)—one of the greatest celebrities of an era when classical music collided with pop culture, Bernstein happily amidst the fray. A recently published collection of Bernstein's letters rekindled discussion about the musician reviewer John Rockwell called "a remarkable man, remarkable despite all his delirious flaws, or because of them."
Though the Bernstein movie will be the first major classical music biopic in years, musical biopics are hot right now: Straight Outta Compton, a film that tells the story of pioneering hip-hop group N.W.A., was released this summer and became the most successful music biopic of all time, with almost $200 million in box office receipts.
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