Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper is working on a biopic of the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen. More details here.
Another day, and another biopic is reportedly in the works in La La Land. World of Reel reports that Scott Cooper, director of The Pale Blue Eyes, Crazy Heart and Out Of The Furnace, has signed on to make a film about Bruce Springsteen.
Springsteen is consulting with Cooper on the film, which will portray Springsteen’s recording of his 1982 album, Nebraska. It was the source of one of Springsteen’s biggest hits, Born In The USA.
No one has been cast in the film yet, and it’ll be interesting to see who takes on the role of the Boss. Music biopics tend to do pretty well both at the box office and in industry circles. Portraying Freddy Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody brought Rami Malek an Oscar and Taron Edgerton’s turn as Elton John in Rocketman was superbly received as well.
According to World Of Reel, the film might be based on Warren Zanes’ book Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska with Cooper writing it himself.
A biopic of Springsteen fits nicely into Cooper’s filmography. I spoke to Cooper in 2022 about The Pale Blue Eye for our sister site whynow, and we spoke about Cooper’s fascination with America and its history.
Cooper said this of his fascination with America: “It also allows me to understand the place from which I came. And what is it about the forces, cultural, socio-economic, that really made me become the person that I became, my family, who they became, and how do these forces in America affect us all on a daily basis? So I try to mine that social commentary in a way hopefully, subtly.”
Cooper also directed Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart, which focused on an ageing, alcoholic country singer, so the director isn’t unfamiliar with directing music numbers. Bridges also won Best Actor for his role as Otis Blake.
Nebraska was Springsteen’s sixth studio album and the singer recorded it while suffering from depression.
There’s no release date or distributor for the biopic yet, but we’ll keep you updated as learn more.
