The year of Timothée Chalamet continues with the upcoming biopic “Beautiful Boy.” Chalamet will have yet another prime opportunity to exercise his dramatic chops in this story in which he plays a struggling meth addict. In keeping with the new direction his career has been headed in after “Foxcatcher,” “The Big Short,” and “Cafe Society,” Steve Carell will play Chalamet’s father in a dramatic role. Brad Pitt‘s Plan B Entertainment and Amazon Studios are producing “Beautiful Boy,” based on the books “Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction” by David Sheff and “Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamine” by his son Nic Sheff.
“When this hit our family, we were like so many families in this country,” David explained on Oprah. “I was not naive about drugs. I used drugs when I was a kid…But I still thought, like most of us, ‘This could never happen to our family.’ When it did, we were so blindsided. We were so devastated that I realized that this is something we have to talk about. I realized the power of telling a story like this because it opens the door to other people. It gives people permission [to discuss it].”
Read the official synopsis below:
Based on the memoir “Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff and “Tweak” by his son, Nic Sheff, Beautiful Boy chronicles the heartbreaking and inspiring experience of survival and recovery in a family coping with addiction over many years.
“Beautiful Boy” has been in the making for ten years now. Originally, Paramount Pictures was attached to co-produce along with Plan B Entertainment. After Paramount Pictures dropped out in 2011, Cameron Crowe wrote a script based on the two books that he planned on using to direct with New Regency, which produced his film “Aloha.” In 2013, Mark Wahlberg was eyeing the role of David.
Eventually, director Felix Van Groeningen, whose film “The Broken Circle Breakdown” was Belgium’s official entry for the 86th Academy Awards, took over at the helm, and Oscar nominee Luke Davies (“Lion“) wrote a new script. “Beautiful Boy” also stars Amy Ryan, Maura Tierney, Timothy Hutton, Amy Forsyth, Ricky Low, and Kaitlyn Dever.
Now self-distributing their own releases, Amazon will release “Beautiful Boy” on October 12 right in the heart of awards season.