The writer behind, “John Lennon, My Brother,” Geoffrey Giluiano, a Beatleologist who co-wrote the book with the help of Lennon’s maternal half-sister, Julia Baird, wants the young-Lennon biopic, “Nowhere Boy,” stopped, even thought the picture is already a month into shooting in the U.K.
Why? Because Baird went off on her own three years later and wrote, “Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon,” which is what “Control,” writer, Matt Greenhalgh‘s screenplay is based from.
Giluiano’s wanted to sue given that the two biographies weren’t drastically different and because he had helped her come to many of the realizations she had in that book, but he held off. But now that the film is being made, his lawyers are instructing to go for a piece of the pie.
“Everything that was additional information in Imagine This was uncovered by me in my original research for John Lennon, My Brother,” Giuliano told the Guardian UK. “I was restricted by Julia from including a lot of very interesting information that I learned in the course of my research, including the relationship between Mimi and Julia Lennon and the fight over where John would live, because Mimi and other older members of the family were still alive at the time. But all that ‘new’ material was my research, part of the work that Julia Baird and I were 50/50 partners in.”
His are interesting arguments that do not sound entirely invalid, convenient or opportunistic, but it does seem highly unlikely that any lawsuit he files will stop the film. Maybe he’ll get a little cut along the lines somewhere.
The Guardian article then goes on to complain that Matt Greenlaugh’s press statement about the book he was adapting sounded “trite” (it’s a press statement for god’s sake) and lamented the fact that many film have bowdlerized the music biography on the big screen, but when haven’t we heard this from The Guardian to be frank? (they complained about the Serge Gainsbourg biopic as well). Maybe they don’t realize, the difference between the medium of film and the medium of biographies and how a motion picture can’t go on for several weeks. It’s kind of an old, tired argument to be honest.
Sam Taylor-Wood’s “Nowhere Boy” stars Aaron Johnson (John Lennon),Thomas Sangster (Paul McCartney), Kristen Scott Thomas (Lennon’s surrogate mother, his Aunt Mimi) David Morrissey, Anne-Marie Duff and is aiming for a late 2009 release date via The Weinstein Company.