Michelle Williams to Play Janis Joplin in Long-Gestating Biopic
Hollywood has been trying to get a Janis Joplin biopic off the ground for a long time, with the most recent attempt coming from Lee Daniels (The Butler) with Amy Adams in the lead role. Like so many other versions, that project ended up never happening, but now a new configuration has emerged and it looks like this one's going to go the distance.
THR reports that Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) is in early negotiations to star as the '60s musician in a movie called Janis for director Sean Durkin, who helmed the unnerving cult-centric film Martha Marcy May Marlene a few years ago. Williams is about to start shooting Hugh Jackman's musical The Greatest Showman on Earth, in which she'll also have to sing, so that could be a nice warm-up for the intense vocal work she'll probably end up doing in this film. Durkin's script is reportedly based on a book written by Joplin's sister, so I imagine the production won't have any trouble gaining rights to Janis's music for this film (that's always a key element in music biopics).
After a quick rise to fame and only releasing three albums, Jopin died in 1970 at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose. She consistently ranked as one of the best musical artists of all time by prominent publications like Rolling Stone, and she left a lasting impact on generations of artists who followed her.