Martin Scorsese’s next film will be a musical biopic about The Grateful Dead with Jonah Hill set to play the band’s frontman Jerry Garcia.
Variety has more details:
“The still-untitled film is expected to chronicle the band’s formation in the Bay Area as the ’60s psychedelic counterculture movement started to take off.”
The movie is being developed at Apple, where Scorsese worked on his upcoming film “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The great writing duo (and World of Reel friends) Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who recently wrote “American Crime Story: Impeachment,” will write the screenplay.
This is an unusual project from Scorsese. The 79-year-old director has stayed away from current trends in his career, but the musical biopic is a big thing these days with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Rocketman” and the upcoming “Elvis.” Scorsese is/was a “Deadhead,” so this does also qualify as a passion project for him.