Earlier this week the trades reported that the Fox Searchlight documentary, “Young@Heart” was being remade into a narrative feature.
The doc was a touching look at a group of senior citizens who formed a choir and sang versions of contemporary songs by groups like Coldplay, The Clash, The Talking Heads and James Brown, under the guidance of a young music director — sort of like reverse “School Of Rock” meets “Cocoon” or something equally heartwarming and uplifting (or schmaltzy, depending).
“I’m With Cancer” scribe Will Reiser was in talks with Working Title to pen the screenplay, but no director was yet named.
However, one source says Stephen Daldry (“The Reader,” “The Hours”) is the man for the gig or at least that he’s “attached.” Apparently Working Title wants “40 Year Old Virgin” star Steve Carell for the lead, but it sounds like that’s just an aiming-high wish list and all producers make those and often fall short (even Tarantino, for example, couldn’t get everyone he wanted for “Inglourious Basterds”).
Skeptics could view this as feel-good treacle, but Daldry proved he could carefully balance inspirational tones while not going overboard in the winning 2000 film, “Billy Elliot” (still a great picture by anyone’s standards).
Pajiba, who brings us this news, is going for broke with a lot of exclusives this week, and actually two of their initial reports have turned up correct (Peter Berg off “Dune” and Chris Pine starring in “The Blade Itself” was confirmed by the author), so if this continues, it’s going to be a major feather in their cap. If they turn up false…well, you know.
The online world is a little cynical, but that’s basically only because an entertaining commentary site has turned into a news breaker and that always brings up a bit of skepticism. They shouldn’t take it personally if they know they’re right (and so far so good).
Here’s the original “Young@Heart” documentary trailer. We missed it in theaters and need to Netflix queue it up.
