Ridley Scott Set To Direct Bee Gees Movie For Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures is moving forward with another high-profile biopic on the popular music group, the Bee Gees, and Ridley Scott has signed on to direct and produce it. They were developing this project a few years ago with Kenneth Branagh attached to direct it, but that obviously didn’t go anywhere.

Bohemian Rhapsody producer Graham King at GK Film is attached to the project. He’s the one who set up the film package, and the film is being produced by the production company Sister along with Amblin.

This is going to be a very different kind of film project for Scott to be a part of, and I’m sure he’ll make a great movie, which was written by John Logan (Gladiator, Alien: Covenant). Scott recently wrapped production on the sequel to Gladiator, and according to the report, “Early footage has blown execs away. He is known for finding his follow-up projects quickly, and once production wrapped last month the studio was quick to get the latest draft of the Bee Gees film in front before he found that next movie.”

The report goes on to point out that Scott, “has a long-standing link to the legendary group going back to when he was trying to launch his directing career. That connection is the group’s longtime manager at the time Robert Stigwood, the music mogul who had been managing the group since the 1960s and played a big part in its resurgence in the ’70s during the disco era while at the same time getting into the movie producing business. Stigwood would put Scott on the medieval film Castle Accident that would star the band’s three brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice. Ultimately the film never came together (Scott would go on to direct The Duelist instead), but that desire to tell some sort of story with the group remained, and now nearly 50 years later Scott has that chance.”

There is a fantastic documentary on the Bee Gees on HBO Max that you’ve got to check out if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s titled The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, and it follows the group's meteoric rise as they navigate the complexities of working so intimately alongside family.

Barry Gibb, one of the Bee Gee brothers, participated in that documentary, and he is also “very involved” with this upcoming film. He will serve as an executive producer.