A long-in-the-works biopic about Janis Joplin is finally coming to fruition, and it features an award-winning leading lady, financial backing, and — unlike that Hendrix biopic — the rights to many of the singer’s most famous songs.
According to Deadline, Tony-winning actress Nina Arianda (and not Amy Adams) will make her screen-starring debut as Joplin, while Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene) will serve as director. The film will chronicle the final six months of the musician’s life with flashbacks to her early career, and will feature 21 of her best known songs, which Arianda will sing herself. Producer Peter Newman spent 12 years trying to acquire the rights to the music, the “rights and arrangements” of Joplin’s backing band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, as well a collection of her letters and David Dalton’s biography’s Piece of My Heart.
The as-yet-untitled film will go into production next year. Stay tuned for more.
