Selena Gomez is looking for her big Oscar role, and it might come in the form of playing ‘70s music icon Linda Ronstadt. This is a dream project for Gomez, and she’s been pursuing it for a few years now.
Needless to say, you need a director to pull this movie off, and a good one. How about David O. Russell? That’s what Showbiz411’s Roger Friedman previously reported. The screenplay was written by James Keach, who produced the award winning Ronstadt documentary, “The Sound of My Voice.”
We now have news that this upcoming Ronstadt biopic has been reportedly acquired by Miramax. Gomez has been spending time at Ronstadt’s home these last few weeks, researching the role, which tells me this project might more far along than first expected.
It is indeed very difficult to duplicate Ronstadt’s voice — she was one of the greatest vocalists of her time. Even though Gomez is a talented singer in her own right, it would be a terrible idea for the actress to perform her own singing in this film, and word is that she won’t.
Ronstadt, known for “You’re No Good” and “Blue Bayou,” has been battling Parkinson’s for a few years now — this film could be a wonderful tribute to her legendary career.
As for Russell, his last film, 2022’s critical and commercial failure “Amsterdam,” lost Searchlight over $100M. He has “Madden” coming out this fall, with Nicolas Cage and Christian Bale, and there have been rumors that one might be going straight to Prime Video streaming.
We don’t fully know if Russell is still part of this project since the last report, but he is a big fan of Ronstadt and has wanted to make a film about her for quite some time, which is part of why he signed on to direct the upcoming biopic.