Ira Sachs’ Musical ‘The Man I Love’ to Star Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach [Updated]

UPDATE: Ben Whishaw is out, replaced by Oscar winner Rami Malek who is set to star in Sachs’ upcoming film “The Man I Love” (via Variety). It’s supposed to start production in the next few days.

Set in late-’80s New York, the film is described as a “musical fantasia of a city under duress” and is based on a screenplay by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias. The cast also includes Tom Sturridge, Luther Ford, BAFTA nominee Rebecca Hall, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.

Malek will play Jimmy George, a downtown artist navigating “an extraordinary moment between great illness and death when, still, all beauty and love is possible.” Yes, the film is being described as a “fantasia musical,” but we’re not entirely sure if this means it’ll involve song-and-dance numbers.

In case you don’t believe the Oscar “curse” is real, for some actors, ever son wing winning his golden statuette for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Malek has starred in “Dolittle,” “The Little Things,” “Amsterdam,” “No Time to Die,” and “The Amateur.” On a slightly more positive note, he had a very small role in “Oppenheimer”

EARLIER: Ira Sachs has quietly built one of the most consistent oeuvres in American indie cinema. After early promise with “The Delta” (1997), his breakthrough came a decade and a half later with a trio of intimate New York dramas: “Keep the Lights On” (2012), “Love is Strange” (2014), and “Little “Men (2016).

Things wobbled a bit with 2019’s “Frankie,” a limp Isabelle Huppert vehicle that played Cannes to shrugs. However, Sachs rebounded with “Passages” (2023), a thorny Paris-set love triangle that became one of his most acclaimed works.

At Sundance this past January, Sachs premiered “Peter Hujar’s Day,” his delicate ode to the late New York photographer. Now comes word, from a source close to the production, that he’ll quickly reteam with ‘Hujar’ star Ben Whishaw on “The Man I Love.”

Details remain under wraps, but the project is said to be set in late-1980s New York City, an era Sachs knows well and has long wanted to capture onscreen. Production kicks off in October.