Today’s news isn’t exactly fresh, as Jean-Marc Vallee’s interest in helming a Janis Joplin biopic has been kicking around for some time. The Wild helmer spoke out months ago concerning the project he had assembled with Amy Adams in the lead as the infamous singer. Now, however, Deadline claims that it’s absolutely going ahead.
In the past, the untitled biopic had both Fernando Meirelles and Lee Daniels attached to direct from a script by Ron and Theresa Kounin-Terry. With Vallee the third in line to bring Adams’ long-awaited dream of portraying Joplin (she’s been involved in development for years) to the big screen, he’s bringing in familiar faces to help re-shape the existing script. Dallas Buyers Club‘s Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack will be writing a new draft. The pair will be aiming to keep the scope of the pic within the projected low budget range of $15-20 million.
A cursory glance over his resume and it’s no secret that Vallee leans strongly towards incredibly personal narratives; The Young Victoria, Cafe De Flore, and his biggest success, Dallas Buyers Club are just three examples. His most recently completed work, the Reese Witherspoon true life tale Wild, is already receiving positive advance word following its debut on the festival circuit. In addition, the French filmmaker has also just wrapped work on Demolition, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts.
The untitled Janis Joplin biopic is expected to shoot mid-2015, with a release date expected sometime in 2016. With that being said, we can look forward to more casting announcements in the coming weeks.
