Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth produced a script for a Cher biopic – but the star has rejected the screenplay. More here.
If we go all the way back to May of 2021, it was reported that Cher had given the idea of a biopic of her life story the go ahead. It was being set up at Universal Pictures, and was being produced by Judy Craymer and Gary Goetzman, along with Cher. Craymer and Goetzman had produced Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, in which Cher has a memorable cameo.
At that point it was announced that Cher’s “dear dear friend”, screenwriter Eric Roth, had been recruited to pen the screenplay. That’s the Eric Roth who won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Forrest Gump, and who recently matched the record for penning the most films nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award.
Eric Roth is also the latest guest on the Film Stories podcast, and at the end of the conversation, I mentioned the Cher biopic to him. Turns out he’s no longer working on the film.
“I did and that failed,” he told me. “I think the script is great, I really do”, he says of the screenplay he turned in. “Cher, we’re still really good friends. I’ve known Cher since Suspect.”
Suspect was the 1987 thriller that Eric Roth wrote the screenplay for, and Cher starred alongside Dennis Quaid and Liam Neeson. Peter Yates directed it.
Back to Cher, Roth told me that “we still text three, four times a week. She said I don’t think this represents me. I said, you’re wrong! I took this all from actual interviews you gave. I even had her narrating the movie from at her age now.”
Still, as he concedes, “it was not how she wanted to be portrayed, and we’ll never know whether she was right or wrong. I was disappointed about that, but so it goes. “
No ill will. Just two friends who remain so, who saw a project in different ways. Give that it’s Cher’s story to tell, she – rightly and inevitably – ultimately holds the power.
Whether the film will still go ahead is unclear. What is clear is that Eric Roth is no longer writing it.
Here’s the podcast episode…
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