James Brown
Photo: Jo Hale/Getty Images
Producer Brian Grazer (8 Mile, Apollo 13, American Gangster) has secured the rights to James Brown’s music for a movie he’s been trying to make for more than a decade. Mick Jagger is co-producing. “I like to make movies about mastery and genius, and it’s hard to find great subjects,†Grazer says. “On the most visceral level, [Brown] sings and dances, and the performance of that contributes to defining him as the hardest working man in showbiz.†The screenplay’s first draft had 30 performance scenes.