According to Deadline, music icon Aretha Franklin has personally selected Jennifer Hudson to star in a biopic about her life, with Clive Davis apparently revealing that news at his big pre-Grammy party on Sunday night. Hudson even performed at the party, singing Franklin’s “Think” and “Respect” after appearances from Barry Manilow, Alicia Keys, Khalid, and Logic. Deadline notes that its sources say MGM is picking up the rights to Franklin’s life and is set to finance a biopic about her, and it will now “move quickly to set a filmmaker and a screenwriter.”
The underlying message here is that this project is pretty far from actually getting made, so even if MGM does find a writer and director immediately, it’ll still be a while before we get to see Hudson as Aretha Franklin. Still, Clive Davis told everybody it was going to happen at what was probably a really cool party, so all of those people will be disappointed if this doesn’t happen at least.