Age clearly isn’t stopping director Martin Scorsese. The legend is 70 next year and in the following months he’ll release his first foray into the 3D family film world with Hugo Cabret, then he will film his 17th Century Jesuit priest drama Silence with Daniel Day-Lewis.
But beyond that the filmmaker has a whole raft of projects lined up: his Frank Sinatra biopic, another gangster movie The Irishman, then a remake of The Five Obstructions with Lars von Trier and a speculated Robert De Niro collaboration called The Comedian.
Now add another to that list: Paramount Pictures have just optioned Furious Love, a biographical account of the love affair between Richard Burton and the late Elizabeth Taylor. And Scorsese is being pursued to direct. Paramount won the deal out of the hands of many other interested parties which include recent Oscar winners: The King’s Speech scribe David Seidler and Black Swan‘s Natalie Portman.
Truth be told the film won’t be a straight forward biopic but instead will focus solely on the affair. The book, which was written by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, had the blessing of both estates and had access to private love letters from Burton to Taylor. Presumably the film has been cleared by both families and they are happy for it to go ahead and a screenwriter will be hired soon.
Who knows where this will come in the director’s schedule. It is a studio project, but as is his Sinatra project and that has Scott Rudin behind it and Universal. That film already has a script but the Sinatra estate is wary of some of the screenplay’s controversial content that links the crooner to the mafia. However, his one could still be a while away, but we’ll keep you posted on any further developments. (Deadline)
Published: Jun 2, 2011 07:59 am