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From Get Smart to ‘Get Happy’ for Hathaway

Right now the Judy Garland biopic Get Happy remains an optioned property, without scribe or director attached, but adding a name like Anne Hathaway might help with the financing and foreign pre-sales interest.

Eric Lavallée

Published on March 23, 2009

Depending on what pictures you look at, there is a uncanny physical resemblance between the two actresses. So I guess this, factored in with the combination of her phoney impromptu number at the Oscars and her versatility as an actress in a darker role (Rachel Getting Married) is what might have got Harvey Weinstein thinking “why not”. Right now the Judy Garland biopic Get Happy remains an optioned property, without scribe or director attached, but adding a name like Anne Hathaway might help with the financing and foreign pre-sales interest.

This is based on Gerald Clarke’s book “Get Happy: the Life of Judy Garland” and details how the actress and singer was plagued by personal problems and mistreated by employers, family and lovers. Garland died in 1969 at the age of 47.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).