Last week I posted that Ben Foster will be playing Lance Armstrong in a biopic, and I mentioned that I first took a liking to Ben when I saw him in Alpha Dogs which co-starred an already favorite actor of mine, Emile Hirsch. Today I learned that Emile has been signed for a biopic himself. He will be playing John Belushi, someone I know even less about than Lance Armstrong.
Belushi died in March of 1982, a year before I was born, and I’ve never gone back to explore his career. I’ve never seen National Lampoon’s Animal House or The Blues Brothers, and I’ve probably only seen him in a sketch or two of Saturday Night Live. I believe he was known for a kind of wild and energetic comedy style, and while I haven’t seen Hirsch do much comedy, he showed a wild, almost spastic side of himself in the movie Lords of Dogtown, which incidentally is where I first took a liking to him.
I understand it means very little for me to say I believe Hirsch can pull off playing such an icon, but I have every faith in him, and I’ll for sure be there to see what happens. At least I won’t have any preconceptions that Hirsch will have to overcome. That can only make his job easier.
Filming begins in the spring of 2014 in New York City. Steve Conrad, writer of The Weather Man, The Pursuit of Happyness, and the upcoming Ben Stiller vehicle The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, will be write and direct. The story will span the peak of Belushi’s career to his death and is based on the book Belushi by Tanner Colby and Judy Belushi Pisano, John’s widow, who is also a producer on the film.
Sources: Deadline.com, IMDB.com
Want to watch Lords of Dogtown?
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