This week in unnecessary movie projects: Fox are apparently looking to the life of flubby singing sensation Susan Boyle for feature film adaptation, given that they might as well try and cash in on her brief period of immense fame before she fades into obscurity for good.
Boyle, of course, became extremely well-known the world over when a clip of her performing “I Dreamed A Dream” (from Les Miserables) on manipulative British popularity contest Britain’s Got Talent – which is definitely not staged or planned or scripted at all in any way – made its way onto YouTube, only to be watched by millions of people who wanted to feel really good about humanity for a short amount of time (and has currently been viewed over 111 million times).
Boyle, who came from a self-declared life of nothingness, emerged as a sort of poster boy for not judging books by their covers, given that Simon Cowell and his merry crew of panel-clad imbeciles first looked upon Boyle as though she might be a walking, talking pile of horse manure, only for the frumpy faced 47-year-old to belt out the theatre staple as though she’d practiced it, like, a lot.
After she became a sort of global phenomenon and gave everybody lovely goosebumps, it was reported that Susan Boyle found it increasingly difficult to cope with all that new-fangled fame and attention. She became depressed and ill, and we haven’t heard much from her since, making this absolutely ripe subject matter for a three-hour movie. Simon Webb, over at Fox Searchlight, is putting the project together, tentatively titled I Dreamed A Dream (after that song, remember?). What we can expect then, is a movie directed by Stephen Frears, with Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Boyle in an Academy Award-nominated performance.
Source: Empire
