Ridley Scott is in the negotiation phase to direct an as-yet-untitled biopic on the Bee Gees, according to a report from Deadline. Sole surviving member Barry Gibb is on board as executive producer, while Scott collaborator John Logan will write the script. Paramount Pictures has purchased the rights to the Bee Gees songs on behalf of the Gibb estate and will be utilizing their extensive back catalog in the upcoming biopic.
Director Ridley Scott is slated to take on the long-discussed Bee Gees biopic project.
The film will tell the story of the Brothers Gibb: Barry and twins Maurice and Robin, the latter two of whom died in 2003 and 2012, respectively. No casting news has been revealed.
The prolific 86-year-old director just wrapped production on the sequel to his epic 2000 film, Gladiator, with his Joaquin Phoenix-starring Napoleon having hit theaters last fall. With a number of music biopics currently in the works – Sam Taylor-Johnson's film on Amy Winehouse Back To Black and Antoine Fuqua's Michael with Jaafar Jackson – not to mention the just released Bob Marley: One Love, the marriage of music and film is a hot commodity at the moment.
The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (2020) | Official Trailer | HBO
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The Emmy-winning 2020 documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart was perhaps the first indication that the trio could merit a career-spanning survey, no longer faced with the decades of ridicule associated with their foray into disco.
Earlier attempts to get a Bee Gees biopic off the ground made news in 2019 when Graham King was attached to produce. His 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody had just scored four Academy Awards, including one for Rami Malek for Best Actor. It was then reported in 2021 that Oscar-winning actor-director Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, Thor) was eyeing the director's chair.
According to Deadline, Scott was once in talks to direct the Gibb brothers themselves at the very start of his career. Robert Stigwood, the music bigwig who was the Bee Gees manager starting in the 1960s, and then was instrumental in their 1970s stratospheric climb back up the charts, was also at the same time getting into the movie-producing business. Stigwood engaged Scott for the medieval period film Castle Accident, to be a vehicle for Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb. That project fell through, and Scott went on to direct his 1977 feature debut The Duellists.
The Bee Gees have sold well over 120 million albums worldwide, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. They placed 13 singles onto the Hot 100 in 1978, with 12 making the Top 40. They were five-time Grammy winners for the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (which won Album of the Year), can boast nine No. 1 singles, and are the third-most successful band in Billboard charts history, behind only the Beatles and the Supremes.
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