UPDATED: Kurt Cobain biopic moving forward; let the wild, calculated-for-maximum-blogging casting rumors begin!
It was 16 years ago this week that Kurt Cobain firmly said no to playing this summer’s Lollapalooza, which left his participation in the slowly rolling wave of grunge nostalgia in peril. Fortunately, he was prescient enough to marry Courtney Love, whose tireless, well-documented commitment to preserving her husband’s legacy now extends to ensuring he gets the rote rock ’n’ roll biopic he’s always deserved—a film that would, no doubt, finally explore all those lingering nuances shamefully overlooked by the thousands of magazine articles, scores of published biographies, hours upon hours of television interviews, and dozens of documentaries that have already been devoted to telling Cobain’s story. The facts can only get you so far, after all; until you put a twenty-something actor in a cardigan and oversized sunglasses, then have him mumble, “I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I’m not” over a montage of screaming, faceless fans, how will anyone ever truly understand?
Cynicism aside, there have been a couple of encouraging reports—namely that Charles R. Cross’ better-than-most biography Heavier Than Heaven will form the basis of any film version. Also somewhat reassuring: The script is reportedly currently being written by David Benioff, responsible for 25th Hour (that’s good!) and Brothers (that’s bad!), and is currently linked to director Oren Moverman of The Messenger (can I go now?). Moverman spoke to MTV News in February and confirmed that the film is definitely moving along, although “it's so early in the process, it would be not right for me to try to guess what the film will be before I start to actually attack it.” So there’s that.
But of course, a tentative connection to reality has never stopped a paper of repute such as The Sun from wildly speculating on casting rumors, like asserting, “Robert Pattinson to play Kurt Cobain in a Hollywood biopic.” The article—which also seems to believe David Fincher is attached, and that the film will be titled All Apologies (which sounds frighteningly plausible, given the circumstances)—claims “a source” has confirmed that Courtney Love has agreed to the biopic only on the condition that she gets final say on the director, the cast, the screenplay, and the music. Leaving aside for the moment the idea that Courtney Love would ever do anything to stand in the way of making bank on her late husband, we’re also expected to believe that not only has this generation’s James-Dean-if-James-Dean-had-learned-everything-about-acting-from-watching-90210-reruns “been calling and e-mailing [Love] non-stop,” making him “her number one choice to play Kurt,” but also that “she is adamant Scarlett Johansson play her.” (The reason? “Scarlett is friendly with Frances Bean, her daughter with Kurt”—and we all know how close Courtney and Frances are these days.) Reached for comment on this frenzy of conjecture, Courtney Love’s Twitter feed said, “the haor is made beuatifully and very thin but very strong.” Make of that what you will.
UPDATE: Entertainment Weekly confirms what we all already suspected: Robert Pattinson is NOT in talks to play Cobain. (As a bonus, this update also includes an awesome quote from Love's manager, who says, "I’m not sure [Courtney] knows who R Patz is, but he sure is cute.")