Since he dropped out of Harvey, Steven Spielberg’s first project under the reconstituted DreamWorks has been a subject of much speculation. Now I hear who’s at the center of the director’s biopic of George Gershwin, which DreamWorks acquired last fall. It’s Zachary Quinto — Sylar in the NBC drama-fantasy Heroes, and Spock in the JJ Abrams-directed megapic Star Trek. Quinto will play the famed composer and pianist, who with brother Ira was responsible for more than a dozen Broadway shows before dying at 38. DreamWorks is even supplying accent and dialogue coaches for Quinto, and shooting could begin as soon as April. Doug Wright wrote the script, and Marc Platt and singer/pianist Michael Feinstein are producing. A DreamWorks insider says this is one of 3 projects Spielberg is looking at for his next piccause he’s anxious to get back to work. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an announcement later this week.
EXCLUSIVE: Zachary Quinto (aka Spock & Sylar) Tunes Up For Spielberg's Gershwin
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About time someone did a remake; the b/w was great with all the music, but with ZQ, this could be so much better.
PERFECT Casting – he even looks a bit like Gershwin and Zachary Quinto is such a talented actor – very happy about seeing ZQ in this movie, as well as the Star Trek sequels and .. of course… HEROES.
“PERFECT Casting – he even looks a bit like Gershwin” – Uh, not really, lol – http://images.google.com/images?q=george%20gershwin
OMG, please let this be true. Quinto is so, so talented and he would be PERFECT to play Gershwin.
Quinto is one of the best young actors now. Nice choice!
I always thought Adrien Brody should play Gershwin.
No Way! Not Adrien Brody. I haven’t liked him since he stole the oscar from Daniel Day Lewis.
Such a project would exceed our wildest expectations!
As a pianist myself, I have for years looked to Gershwin as nothing less than a genius, and have heard rumors of the incipient GG biopic for years, chiefly connected with Scorcese. Finally, it appears Spielberg will do it. I just hope fervently that he pulls it off. As a private pilot and aviation fanatic, I hoped that the recent Amelia project would fly. Sadly, like Amelia’s Lockheed, it crashed far short of the goal. I am hoping George and Ira fare better at the hands of a filmmaker who seldom stumbles.
For a Gershwin fan like me, this sounds great. But I wonder what kind of movie this will make. Gershwin didn’t seem to have a really dramatic life. He died young-that was sad but he had no kids, no wife (I don’t think). Had an early success so his struggles were over quickly. He was critically acclaimed and super popular and rich. Is there a movie here?
The Cole Porter movie with Kevin Kline was pretty lousy, but Porter did have a more interesting life.
As far as Quinto being well cast, well why not? Who alive today recalls the real Gershwin and will know if his portrayal is accurate?
I totally agree with you, 100%. I know that Gershwin did have a fairly long-term affair with the (married) songwriter Kay Swift, of “Fine and Dandy” fame. There might be a movie in that, however slight. And as Woody Allen has already shown us, the Gershwin catalogue can make one helluva film soundtrack.
Love the idea of Gershwin and Quinto, but just don’t buy Spielberg directing something with such limited box office potential.
>but just don’t buy Spielberg directing
>something with such limited box office
>potential
Oh, you mean like that little black & white movie about Auschwitz?
Yep, you’re right: If it ain’t robots and tits, who the fuck is ever gonna pay to see it, right?
Dumbass.
what are the three projects competing to become ss’s next gig: gershwin, interstellar and lincoln? anybody in the know?
> Oh, you mean like that little black & white movie about Auschwitz?
Fuck off, that had massive appeal. Gershwin has less.
Hey, Hugh! Your hindsight is 20/20 baby! Tell that to the studio execs, who begged Stevie to shoot in color, begged him not to make the movie. Why? Because ‘Schindler’ had no commercial value in their minds and even less in b&w! Get you head out of your ass Hugh because hindsight in your case, is exactly that: Eyes out your hiney.
Awesome! Quinto is definitely the best young actor and he needs some good script to felx his acting muscles on!
Haysoos, what are you thick? You comparing a film about the holocaust, that kind of scope, history and tragedy with a regular biopic?
Thomas is absolutely right this film has a limited scope – a biopic about a composer – will I watch it, hell yes, does it reek of box office potential, fuck no.
No matter how artistically, cinematically creative you get with this flick (and I’m talking quick cuts, dissolves, flashbacks, grainy 16mm film etc – a cinematic clusterfuck of Scorcese and Stone’s styles) its *still* a biopic and a period one at that (so it wont be cheap).
Zachary Quinto is a brilliant choice, though, can’t argue with that.
The problem is Spielberg who seems to have lost his cinematic marbles and talent the last decade (i.e. CRYSTAL SKULL).
If bad boy Director Ken Russell (TOMMY, MAHLER, ALTERED STATES) was younger, he may have been able to pull this off. Or a Nicholas Roeg…maybe (but not Spielberg).
I kind of expected Quinto to show up in one of Spielberg’s movies. Yes, he was that good in Trek and will end being up of the top five master thespians in future Lalaland.
As for box office – who cares? You don’t just churn ’em out for the green. It’s an art form, folks. Art. You might want to do some research.
the motion picture business is an art form? what kind of tool writes something like? indie films might have some type of “art for art’s sake” left to them, but the rest of it is ALL business.
I love George Gershwin, but this is a terrible idea. GG’s life just doesn’t have a movie in it. That’s why Hollywood only attempted making it once, and THAT was heavily fictionalized. Gershwin wasn’t some Charles Foster Kane figure – there’s no “what’s the real story” behind his life. If Spielberg wants to pay tribute to Gershwin, he should make “Porgy and Bess” or something.
As for box office potential, let’s be realistic, the average age of the moviegoer for this picture will be about 60.
They are certainly incorporating Porgy and Bess into the movie.. they have been trying to find a “Hollywood star black female opera singer” for the past two weeks.. Audition sides have been from Dorothy Dandridge and The Great Debaters and the song was ‘Summertime’
What would be interesting here is the contribution of another fine composer and constant Spielberg collaborator John Williams.
“But I wonder what kind of movie this will make. Gershwin didn’t seem to have a really dramatic life. He died young-that was sad but he had no kids, no wife (I don’t think). Had an early success so his struggles were over quickly. He was critically acclaimed and super popular and rich. Is there a movie here?”
I believe he had quite the rep as a ladies’ man, so there could be some mileage from that. Plus I doubt Gershwin’s life was as easy as it seems on the surface. Doug Wright is a smart writer, so I think there must be something there.
I hope they don’t make a bad movie like they did with Kevin Spacey’s Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea. I couldn’t get beyond 30 minutes.
Quinto seems like stunt casting. Not sure what he brings to the role.
I think there is some drama :
1. From poor immigrant family, 2. Late starter musically (10 yrs old). 3. Becomes Tin Pan Alley songwriter, 4. Breaks into writing Musicals, then 5. Breaks into the “legitimate” Classical music world, 6. Dies young, at the height of popularity.
Not another Avatar, but Spielberg with Zachary Quinto will do a fine job I think.
get real people – today’s audiences barely know where George Clooney came from – People have NO IDEA who George Gershwin is, nor will they ever care. Why this is a movie is beyond me. Feels like PBS.
George Gershwin and fellow composer/pianist Harry Ruby grew up in the same neighborhood of New York City, and remained acquainted well into adulthood.
One time, when both men were in Hollywood composing music for motion pictures, Gershwin and Ruby met for lunch. And walking across the studio’s back lot after lunch, they noticed a baseball lying on the sidewalk. Gerwhwin picked up the ball and tossed it to Ruby. Ruby caught the ball and tossed it back to Gershwin, and suddenly the two grown men were playing a game of catch.
Eventually the throws grew harder and stronger and faster, and soon the baseball was beginning to sting each composer’s hand. Finally, Gershwin called the game off.
“We have to stop doing this, Harry,” Gershwin told his old friend. “My hands are too valuable to risk injuring them in a game of catch.”
“Your hands are too valuable?” Harry Ruby replied. “What about my hands?”
“It’s not the same thing,” said George Gershwin.
Harry Ruby, deeply offended, turned around and walked away and didn’t speak to George Gershwin for a number of years. Finally the two men happened to encounter each other again in New York while walking downtown. Ruby saw Gershwin walking toward him on the street and was about to duck into a doorway to avoid him when Gershwin called out to his old friend.
Moments later the two men were talking again. And after a while, Gerwhwin asked Ruby, “Harry, we haven’t talked like this for years. I got the impression that you were angry with me. Did I do something to offend you?”
Harry Ruby drew a breath and asked Gershwin, “George, do you remember that afternoon in California when we had lunch and then played catch for a while afterward?”
“Yes?” said George Gershwin.
“And do you remember when you stopped the game and said that your hands were too valuable to risk injuring in a game of catch?”
“Yes?” said Gershwin.
“And do you remember me asking you ‘Well, what about my hands?'”
“Yes?”
“Well, George,” said Harry Ruby, “when I asked you ‘What about my hands?’ you told me ‘It’s not the same thing.'”
“Well, it’s not,” said George Gershwin.
George Gershwin and Harry Ruby never spoke again.
Actually, Gershwin lived a very dramatic life, especially in his final years. His death at 38 from a brain tumor was not merely the tragedy of a sudden illness that robbed him of his life and us of him and the works he would have composed. The drama of this tragedy lay in the way he was treated–mistreated–by some of the people closest to him, both friends and family.
Can you explain? How was he mistreated? Sounds really interesting!
The Scorcese project was called “Mine.” Paul Schraeder wrote the screenplay years ago, and it was similar to “Reds” in that we would hear from different people who knew Gershwin tell the man’s story. Each narrator had their own version/interpretation of GG, hence the title “Mine” (which of course was also one of his songs). No, GG was never married but he had a long affair with songwriter Kay Swift. For my money, I’d rather see Scorcese/Schraeder’s take than yet another standard Hollywood biopic.
Gershwin’s life (biographers including E. Jablonski) is well-examined but there is no concensus on the dramatic elements. Some conjecture he was gay.
He published his first song at 18, the most notable love interest was Kay Swift. Gershwin is not well understood. I hope that this movie treads carefully.
I admire everyone involved for making a movie that goes against the typical Hollywood type. I hope it’s good. It all depends on the story. I love Zachary Quinto and I trust his good judgement. I can’t imagine Speilberg getting involved unless it had a very good and moving screenplay.