Remember Jessica Sharzer’s imagining of the Dusty Springfield story, which began production in 2005? No? How about the one starring Nicole Kidman, penned by The Hours‘ scribe Michael Cunningham which got off the ground in 2008? Still drawing a blank? Turns out, the cursed project just can’t seem to get made, even with significant star power behind it. The third time could be the charm, though, as Fairbanks Productions has saved up $30 million in change to give it another shot. Based on Sharon Davis’s intimate novel A Girl Called Dusty, the film is the third announced production from the 6-month old company founded by Dominick Fairbanks – the great grandson of none other than Douglas Fairbanks. Filming is set to start at some point in 2012, as long as the “Death comes in threes” rule doesn’t show its face.
Gist: “This is the story that she never had the chance to tell herself…” reads the source novel’s tagline. Author Sharon Davis knew Springfield through her final years battling breast cancer, right up to her death. Reportedly asked by Springfield to “Be kind”, Davis has a lot of muck and gossip to straighten out in telling the life story of one of the world’s biggest ‘It’ girls. There’s a long line of diva biopics to build off of, from Evita to La Vie en Rose, to Dreamgirls and Diva itself. An eclectic genre, for sure.
Worth Noting: While Nicole Kidman made headlines three years ago for landing the (seemingly) defunct role, other contenders included Keira Knightly, Amy Winehouse, and Kate Winslet, while Sharzer’s rendition was to star Kristin Chenoweth.
Do We Care?: Dusty is such an iconic figure, that a biopic is pretty much inevitable at some point; it’d be a real missed opportunity if it didn’t end up at the quality level that a complex talent like Dusty should get. There were drastic evolutions in culture over the course of her career, which will at least allow for some set design and costume muscle. Fairbanks are a promising company, and this is their third assignment, so it will be fun to follow their trajectory from its infancy, especially with a family name as golden as they’ve got.
