It was nearly five years ago that we first wrote about the possibility of a biopic about Beach Boys member and general rock and roll god Brian Wilson. Like so many great movie ideas, though, this one fell apart somewhere along the way, and it's taken this long for someone else to come up with the same bright idea and get it going again. River Road Entertainment announced yesterday that they've secured the life rights of both Wilson and his wife Melinda, and The Messenger writer-director Oren Moverman is currently at work on a script about the musician's life.
There's no mention of the company also securing the music rights, though you have to assume they have them given that the press release promises a film that "will take an unconventional look at Wilson's unique musical process as well as his struggles with mental illness, and how he managed to persevere as an artist with the love and support of his wife Melinda." The focus on the wife also makes it sound like it will be less of a story about the Beach Boys, the band that fell apart at its peak thanks to Wilson's ambition and substance abuse issues, than a story about Wilson himself. I'm not saying that will be a disappointment-- Wilson is obviously a fascinating figure with plenty of life story to tell on his own-- but I'm much more interested in the nuts and bolts of how the band functioned than Wilson's personal story.
As for when we might expect to see the project, Moverman is now in post-production on his cop drama Rampart, which filmed last fall, and also has plans to write a biopic about Kurt Cobain. The timeline for the Wilson project will probably depend on a lot of other factors like casting and schedules, so keep an ear to the ground about both of those to figure out when the film will take the next step forward.
