By Russell Crowe, acclaimed star of Wine Drunk at the Villa and Fightin’ Round the World, will be directing a film based on the life of legendary comedian Bill Hicks, who died of cancer at the age of thirty-two. At present, no one’s been cast as Hicks, though the film will be going into production sometime next year. I’d imagine that Crowe and co. will be looking very carefully at casting, since casting is the very first place a Bill Hicks movie can go terrible off the rails.
I think Bill Hicks would be more than a little upset to have his work and life story pushed through the Hollywood biopic machine, so this news isn’t exactly the happiest for me. I get the feeling he’d read news like this and go on a good long tirade on the media and Hollywood’s insistence on Oscar-bait-y biopics just like this one. Here’s hoping the picture will do Bill justice.
[Via /Film]