'Dallas Buyers Club' Director Takes Over Janis Joplin Biopic starring Amy Adams

Want to know who is on one Hell of a roll right now? Jean-Marc Vallee, who helped take Matthew McConaughey to his first Oscar with Dallas Buyers Club, and has Reese Witherspoon possibly earning her next award for Wild. Basically, he knows how to pull the best from his actors, and now we're going to see what he can do for Amy Adams in the long-gestating Janis Joplin biopic.

Okay, this news has been making the rounds for awhile but is now confirmed that Vallee will direct the film on rock 'n roll legend. Adams has long been on board to play Joplin while the search for a director saw Lee Daniels and Fernando Meirelles briefly attached. Titled Get It While You Can and due to be given a rewrite by Dallas Buyers Club writers Craig Borten and Melissa Wallack, the story will follow the fast-living singer/songwriter who became known as the "Queen of Psychedelic Soul" during her brief but legendary career.

Vallee just wrapped up the Jake Gyllenhaal-led film, Demolition, and will begin work on the Joplin film in mid-2015.

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Lee Daniels in talks to direct rival Janis Joplin biopic; Amy Adams to star

 
While the life of influential 1960s psychedelic rocker Janis Joplin could certainly fill a football stadium's worth of movies, we now can count at least two competing biopics that are moving forward at the same time. While Janis is moving forward with Sean Durkin directing and Nina Arianda starring, another long in-development is taking shape with some surprising choices both in front of and behind the camera.

THR reports that Lee Daniels(Precious) is in talks to direct Get It While You Can, with Amy Adams set to play the hippie rock 'n roller. Written by Ron Terry and his wife Theresa Kounin-Terry, this version will focus on a single day in the life of the hard-livin' singer, who inspired a number of female musicians before dying of a drug overdose in 1970. The film has gone through a ton of changes, with Fernando Meirelles(City of God) and Catherine Hardwicke(Thirteen) attached at various points, and Renee Zellwegger once set to play Joplin. That would have been a bad idea, I might add.

Daniels is currently recovering from the public thrashing The Paperboy has been receiving, while also filming his civil rights drama, The Butler. This could turn out to be a defining role for Adams, the type that could put her in the Best Actress orbit. Financing is still coming together, with Focus Features possibly coming on board. If all works out, production could begin early next year.

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Sure Shots: Chris Cooper; Cole Hauser; Janis Joplin

* John Wells and vaunted character actor Chris Cooper recently worked together on the downsizing drama, The Company Men, and they must have hit it off like gangbusters. Cooper is the latest to join the writer/director's adaptation of August: Osage County, based on Tracy Letts' acclaimed stageplay. Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts are starring in the film, about the estranged Weston women, who come back home to Oklahoma when a family crisis arises.  Streep will play the hard-drinking matriarch, while Roberts is her contentious older daughter. Andrea Riseborough is in talks to play the youngest daughter, while Cooper be Streep's brother-in-law. [Variety]

* With Radha Mitchell just having come aboard Antoine Fuqua's White House thriller, Olympus Has Fallen, the latest to try and save the day is Cole Hauser. Usually a bad guy, Hauser will actually play a Secret Service agent in the film, which has Gerard Butler as the hard luck ex-agent who comes to the rescue when the White House is taken over by North Korean terrorists. Aaron Eckhart and Angela Bassett are co-starring. Hauser just recently wrapped up playing the villain in A Good Day to Die Hard.  Don't be surprised if Hauser's character turns out to be a traitor or something. [THR]

* After years of various filmmakers trying to put together a biopic on the life of singer/songwriter Janis Joplin, it looks like one is finally going to happen, and the talent is pretty impressive. Sean Durkin(Martha Marcy May Marlene) is set to direct Joplin, with rising star Nina Arianda taking on the difficult task of emulating Joplin's presence. Arianda recently appeared in Tower Heist and played Michael Sheen's wife in Midnight in Paris. She's also a Tony Award winning stage actress and nearly landed a role in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty. Producer Peter Newman has the rights to Joplin's songs with her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, as well as the biographies chronicling her life. The film will follow the last six months of her life, before she tragically died of a drug overdose in 1970. Arianda will do all the singing herself, and the small budget film will be done for roughly $20M. Filming is set to begin early next year. [Deadline]

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