Exclusive: Billy Elliot's Stephen Daldry Remaking Young@Heart
Steve Carrell Eyeing an Oscar Statue? /
Dustin Rowles
Trade News | November 17, 2009 | Comments (6)
Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Will Reiser (I’m with Cancer) had been hired to pen the script for a feature remake of the critically beloved documentary, Young@Heart, about a group of senior citizens who perform contemporary and classic rock and pop songs.
But because THR works off of press releases instead of awesome inside sources like our own Hollywood Cog, what they didn’t report was that Young@Heart isn’t a two-bit cash-in comedy project. Working Title Films is putting some real star power behind this project. Indeed, the feature re-write will turn its focus on the conductor of the Young@Heart chorus, a part that our source tells us Steve Carell is seriously eying. Moreover, THR didn’t report that the project also has a director attached — three-time Oscar nominated Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours, The Reader).
Indeed, with Reiser on board as screenwriter (revising a draft from Bob Nelson), Daldry attached, and Carrell a serious possibility, my guess is that Working Title films may actually attempt to push this as a prestige pic, and Carell is likely eying it as a means to procuring a little acting cred. After all, Daldry is three for three in the Best Director Oscar nominee category, and based on Prisco’s review of the documentary, there’s plenty of Oscar bait available. As he wrote: “It is what it is: an emotionally manipulative documentary about singing seniors so rife with overwrought sentimentality that it would make Thomas Kinkade vomit pastel watercolors on the Hallmark Channel. But when it comes down to it, it’ll make you feel good. Like you know you should. Huh!”
Huh! Indeed.
Comments
Posted by: Jay at November 17, 2009 10:51 AM
And the picture-link for "most boneheaded projects" appeared under the story.
Quite.