The Bee Gees will be the latest legendary band to get the music biopic treatment. John Carney (Once, Sing Street) has been hired to direct the film, which will see John Logan (The Aviator, Skyfall) penning the script.
The project had been discussed about a year ago with Kenneth Branagh attached to direct the project, but the Belfast director departed alongside screenwriter Ben Elton due to scheduling conflicts.
The Bee Gees consisted of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, and formed in 1958. They were relatively successful from the jump, but saw a huge rise in prominence during the mid-70s thanks to the disco craze. Their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack had a huge cultural impact and won them them five Grammy awards.
The band retired in 2003 after Maurice’s death, but they remain arguably the faces of disco, and were the subject of acclaimed 2020 HBO documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. It’s unclear what part of their career the film will cover – maybe all of it – but Carney and Logan will have plenty of options.
Carney is a great choice for director, as all his films involve music in some way. His low budget 2007 musical drama Once won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and he’s since gone on to helm comedy-drama Begin Again and heartwarming coming-of-age musical drama Sing Street.
This project is just the latest in a long line of music biopics in the works following the massive commercial success of Bohemian Rhapsody a few years ago. Currently in development are films based on the lives of Whitney Houston (directed by Kasi Lemmons), Bob Marley (by King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green), KISS, Joey Ramone, Leonard Bernstein, and more.
And that’s not to mention Baz Luhrmann‘s Elvis Presley biopic Elvis, which arrives in June.
So the currently untitled Bee Gees project will have a tough time standing out. However, most of the other biopics do not have a director as adept in musical projects as Carney at the helm, so that may give this one a leg up. We now wait for word on the film’s title and what actors will portray the group.
#Peace.Love.BeeGees
