It was just a few months ago we learned that Darren Aronofsky was eying to potentially direct an Evel Knievel biopic produced by and starring Channing Tatum. However, he recently dropped the project and set his sights on a drama starring Jennifer Lawrence. Now it looks like the story of the infamous daredevil might still see screens, but in a different form.
According to Deadline, Paramount Pictures has now brought on William Monahan, the Oscar-winning to script a competing film about the famed daredevil who gained notoriety for his often successful, sometimes failed motorcycle stunts. And in even better news, the studio is hoping Martin Scorsese will reunite with his screenwriter of The Departed for the film. The director, whose next film Silence will likely premiere at Cannes, currently has a deal with the studio through 2019. So, if things go well with Monahan’s script, perhaps this could move up the ladder on his long list of developing projects.
Unlike Sony and Tatum’s project, this one is based on Sheldon Saltman‘s currently hard-to-find book Evel Knievel On Tour, which is known “for so pissing off Knievel in its depiction of his life on the road that he attacked the author with a baseball bat on the Fox lot, broke his arm and got himself in all kinds of legal, money and image trouble.” Produced by Terence Winter, Rachel Winter, and LBI Entertainment, it could be a fascinating character study for Monahan and Scorsese, so hopefully the development process goes well.
Do you want to see a Scorsese-directed Evel Knievel biopic?