The Film Stage reports that work on the long-in-development project Genius has begun again, this time with Michael Fassbender and Colin Firth in the lead roles. The story is based on the National Book Award-winning biography Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg and paints a candid portrait of the relationship between Thomas Wolfe (Fassbender) and his editor Max Perkins (Firth).
The two geniuses, writer and editor, had a stormy relationship that resulted in a number of fiery yelling matches and a severed professional relationship (despite the fact that they had produced some of the most critically acclaimed work of their time).
Their friendship, however, survived their tempestuous working lives, so that just before Wolfe’s premature death from miliary tuberculosis he penned a letter to Perkins wherein he describes the editor as his closest friend.
Acclaimed theater director Michael Grandage has signed on to the project and will be making his screen debut. Doubtlessly by bringing Fassbender and Firth, two of the UK’s finest and most marketable acting talents, together FilmNation hopes that it can find a buyer in the American Film Market.
Let’s hope that someone comes to their senses and offers the project a distribution deal here in the United States.
