Directors
Bryan Singer and
Gus Van Sant are about to lock horns to see who is the first man to get a movie biopic about
Harvey Milk off the ground. For those who don't know, Milk was the first openly gay elected official in the U.S. which meant of course that he was assassinated in 1978 along with Mayor George Moscone. His killer Dan White also a supervisor, was only sentenced to seven years in prison which led to many riots and protests. From Variety...
After 15 years in development, "The Mayor of Castro Street," the movie based on the book by Randy Shilts, is moving toward the starting gate. Warner Independent Prods., which brought in Singer two years ago, is near a deal with Participant Prods. to co-finance and with Chris McQuarrie to write the final draft.
So that would be the Bryan Singer project on Harvey Milk then but of course the interesting thing in all of this, is that Singer already has his WWII epic
Valkyrie to begin shooting this summer then of course he will be working on
The Man of Steel soon after. Unless Superman is said to be delayed after all. Speaking as an outsider looking in, if Singer wants to helm this project before Van Sant then he will have to drop the Superman sequel from his schedule. This is because Gus Van Sant has attached himself and will be ready to shoot on an untitled script on Milk's life written by
Dustin Lance Black which should begin making the studio rounds next week. Adding to the irony of all this, is that Van Sant was originally slated to helm
The Mayor of Castro Street some years ago and he will be now competing with Singer and Warner Brothers to beat them to the punch. It shouldn't be under-estimated how important it is to get your movie off the ground first. A couple of years ago
Baz Luhrmann was interested in getting a movie about Alexander the Great off the ground but
Oliver Stone beat him to the punch... made a shitty movie... then Lurhrmann thought better of it and never did make his picture. More recently, in 2005
Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for his performance in
Capote as writer Truman Capote. Some months later,
Infamous starring
Sandra Bullock,
Daniel Craig and a host of other big name stars alongside
Toby Jones as Truman Capote was released but never got any type of recognition from the general public or any awards. The sad thing was that the movie was said to be really good and Jones' performance particularly was said to be incredible. In truth, it didn't matter how amazing Jones' performance was... once Hoffman got his Oscar, he had no chance of getting anywhere near the statue for that role. source -
variety