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Godfather
onFilm
Spike Lee’s James Brown movie leads
new crop of biopics BY NICOLE FREHSÉE
W
hen james brown
died o n C h r i s t m a s
morning at age seventy-three, he left something more
than his legacy: He left an ending to
his movie. “Now that he’s passed,
it changes everything,” says director Spike Lee, who is ramping up
production on a film tracing
Brown’s life through his povertystricken childhood in Augusta,
Georgia, to the heights of fame.
“His life was so dynamic,” adds
the film’s producer, Brian Grazer.
“One minute he’s being honored
at the Kennedy Center, and the
next minute he’s in prison. Everything in his world was polarized.”
The as-yet-untitled film – which
Lee will also adapt, drawing on two
previous scripts – is among a slew of
biopics (see sidebar) popping up in
the wake of the critical and commercial success of 2004’s Ray and
2005’s Walk the Line. The films also
drive music sales: Johnny Cash,
who died in 2003, was last year’s
second-best-selling artist, with
4.8 million albums sold, including
several greatest-hits compilations
and the Rick Rubin-produced American V: A Hundred Highways.
“After Ray, the commercial viability [of biopics] became crystal-clear,”
says Duncan McGillivray, co-producer of the upcoming Marvin, a
Marvin Gaye movie expected in
2008 that chronicles the singer’s life
and shocking death. “There is a global audience for this picture.” Roberta
Flack will serve as music supervisor
on the film, which features the original versions of Gaye’s biggest hits.
“Roberta was a friend of his,”
says McGillivray. “She’s
making sure the music all
fits beautifully.”
Who fans will hear the
band’s songs in See Me,
Feel Me: Keith Moon Naked
for Your Pleasure, a ten-yearsplus-in-the-making project
about the hard-partying drummer.
Set for 2009, the film is being coproduced by Roger Daltrey. Mike
Myers will play Moon, who died in
1978 at age thirty-two. “Moon lived
with incredible frustration,” Daltrey says. “He was a manic-depressive, a savant, a fucking genius.
Mike has a lot of ability to show the
enormity of what Keith had done.”
Like the Moon biopic, the Brown
project stretches back more than a
decade, when Grazer was researching the 2002 Eminem movie 8 Mile.
“I got interested in Public Enemy,
Wu-Tang and Run-DMC,” Grazer
says. “I made it a point to meet these
rappers, and they always referenced
James Brown and his impact on their
music. It stuck with me.”
After acquiring the rights to
Brown’s life story and catalog in
1999, Grazer hired Brown’s longtime friend the Rev. Al Sharpton as
a consultant and started digging.
“Sharpton would give the insights –
James’ work ethic was profound,”
Grazer says, recalling a story about
Brown stepping on a nail while performing. “His foot was bleeding
through his shoe, but he kept going.” Though no one has been
pegged to star, Lee has one rule:
“Whoever we have is going to be
lip-syncing. We’re not trying to impersonate him – we want to give
the essence of the man and how he
shaped the time.”
True Stories: Other Rock Movies
Miles Davis
Title TBA OUT TBA
Don Cheadle is
reportedly set
to star in this
authorized bio, which
resurrects the legendary jazz
man – with all his demons.
Brian Wilson
Title TBA OUT TBA
Producer Mark Gordon will chart
the musical triumphs and personal
battles of the Beach Boys founder,
who authorized the film and will
likely be played by various actors at
different stages throughout his life.
“I want to make this movie while
Brian’s alive,” says Gordon, “to tell
18 ROLLING STONE, FEBRUARY 8, 2007
a story that shows him in a
wonderful place after many
years of pain and suffering.”
Ian Curtis
Control OUT 2007
(IN EUROPE)
Photographer and music-video
director Anton Corbijn – who shot
the Curtis-led Joy Division in their
early days – offers up a black-andwhite portrayal of the New Wave
pioneer, whose rocky marriage
and epilepsy drove him to suicide
in 1980. “Joy Division never had a
hit when Ian was alive,” says
Corbijn. “This movie will make
their music available to a much
broader audience.”
Janis Joplin
The Gospel According to
Janis OUT TBA
Zooey Deschanel
will play Joplin
in the long-inthe-works movie
from Wayne’s
World director
Penelope Spheeris. “Janis’ energy
and charisma were forces of
nature,” says Spheeris, a cowriter of the script with former
R OLLING S TONE writer David
Dalton, who profiled Joplin for
the magazine. “She was
profoundly talented, but she
was never really given the
respect that she deserved.”
[ IN THE NEWS ]
Guy jams with Mayer
in Chicago.
Mix-Tape King
Busted by RIAA
Top mix-tape maker DJ Drama and
partner DJ Don Cannon were
arrested on January 16th when
police and officials from the
Recording Industry Association of
America raided the duo’s Atlanta
warehouse. Officials seized
81,000 CDs, four vehicles and
recording equipment. Drama,
a.k.a. Tyree Simmons, and Cannon
were released on $100,000 bond
and will face racketeering charges.
“Our agents made [mix tape]
purchases in a store and over the
Internet,” says Chief James Baker
of the Morrow, Georgia, police.
“They figured out the source based
on the advertising on the CDs.”
(Drama and Cannon’s attorney
declined comment.)
Drama is hardly an industry
outsider: His Gangsta Grillz CD
series helped launch Young Jeezy,
Young Dro and T.I. – and Drama
himself is preparing a major-label
release, Gangsta Grillz: The Album,
for Atlantic this year. “Drama is
no bootlegger,” says Young
Jeezy’s manager, Coach K. “The
RIAA doesn’t understand – artists
go to him to break their music.”
RIAA executive VP of antipiracy Brad Buckles says the
organization isn’t starting a “war
against mix tapes,” but he says
DJs cross the line when they sell
CDs labeled FOR PROMOTIONAL
USE ONLY . “It’s gone from a
promotional tool into something
that is making money,” he says.
Many mix-tape vendors aren’t
taking chances: Days after the
DJ Drama (left)
and T.I.
bust, mix-tape Web sites began
pulling their merchandise. “DJs
are going to be scared, and it’s
going to affect hip-hop,” says
Coach K. “These guys are trying to
break artists. Labels need them.”
Buddy Guy’s Club
Loses Lease
Buddy Guy’s Legends, the blues
club owned by Guy in Chicago, is
losing its lease. Columbia
College, which owns the building,
is going to turn the space into a
student center. Since opening in
1989, the club has featured
appearances from Eric Clapton,
Bo Diddley, Van Morrison, Stevie
Ray Vaughan and David Bowie.
“Blues clubs are like blues
musicians,” Guy says, checking in
before the tenth night of a
monthlong stint he is playing at
the club – during which he was
recently joined by John Mayer.
“They don’t get any good until
they turn sixty. The club is just
now getting a little successful,
and now I gotta move it.”
Kanye West has teamed up
with producer Rick Rubin and
Borat director Larry Charles for a
new HBO series. West describes
the as-yet-untitled show – which
has been in the works for a
couple of years – as a sitcom
loosely based on his life.
The Clio, Michigan, home of
garage-rock pioneer ?, singer of
? and the Mysterians, burned
down on January 10th after a
blaze broke out in a bedroom.
More than forty years of rock
memorabilia was destroyed,
including the gold record for his
1966 hit “96 Tears.” “I lost
everything,” says ?. “I can’t even
add up the damage.”
System of a Down are featured
in a new documentary, Screamers
– which mixes concert footage,
band interviews and archival film
to trace the history of genocide
from the 1915 massacre of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks to
the present-day conflict in Darfur.
The doc is currently in theaters.
“Genocide is a disease that
needs to be understood and
eradicated,” says System singer
Serj Tankian.
DAVID CORIO/MICHAELOCHSARCHIVES.COM (BROWN); FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES (MYERS); PAUL NATKIN/WIREIMAGE.COM (GUY AND MAYER); ANDREA RENAULT/GLOBE PHOTOS (DJ DRAMA AND T.I.); KEN REGAN/CAMERA 5 (JOPLIN); HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES (DAVIS)
James Brown is
getting his own
Ray. Inset:
Myers will play
Keith Moon.