Beach Boy's Estate Pulls Out of Planned Biopic 'The Drummer'
A long-delayed film about Dennis Wilson's final years may never happen, producers tell THR.
by Patrick Flanary
The Hollywood Reporter
Aaron Eckhart was too exhausted from shooting I, Frankenstein in Australia to portray Dennis Wilson -- the Beach Boys drummer who drowned 30 years ago this month -- in a film about the musician’s final years, and left the production just before shooting was to begin in June 2012.
His departure has indefinitely delayed The Drummer, and now, producers tell The Hollywood Reporter, the biopic's future is murkier. “It was a huge blow for us when Eckhart pulled out,” says Brad Rosenberger, the film’s music supervisor and a publisher of Wilson’s songs, adding that Eckhart had spent six months learning to sing and play the piano and drums.
(Vera Farmiga also was cast as Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie.)
The latest setback, however, might be the most insurmountable. The trustee for Wilson’s estate, which represents his children, suggests that the project is now officially off. “The Dennis Wilson Trust can confirm that there is no plan for proceeding with the Drummer project,” Shelley Surpin said in an email, declining to elaborate.
Wilson’s son Carl and daughter Jennifer -- children from separate marriages -- had signed on to co-produce the film in October 2011. The deal represented the first time the family had sanctioned a movie, enabling director Randall Miller to secure the rights to use songs from Pacific Ocean Blue, Wilson’s solo album. But their unease about the screenplay, written by Jody Savin, has contributed to the project’s delay, Wilson’s producer and writing partner Gregg Jakobson reveals. “The kids, they get bad counseling,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s the estate -- they don’t know anything about the entertainment business. They hardly even really ever knew their dad.”
Rosenberger, who spent 20 years at Warner-Chappell, approached Wilson’s family with the film idea in 2008 and said that the children remain interested. “With everything in the right place, they would love to see a movie honoring their father,” he tells THR. “There are no plans to make this Dennis Wilson movie now, but I don’t think it would be accurate to say we don’t want a movie to be made.”
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