Taking another Swig at Biopic Material: Hackford to direct ‘Tenn’

For those who have wondered how playwright Tennessee Williams conceived impressionable, tragic female figures that were the make up for in A Streetcar Named Desire in and The Glass Menagerie, might want to keep tabs on what Taylor Hackford has in store for his next project.

Variety reports that the director of the upcoming relationship drama about a couple who opened the first legal brothel in Nevada (Love Ranch) will direct Tenn, based on the script by Robin Shushan (The Contortionist’s Handbook). Michael Ohoven is financing development and will produce with Dan Halsted.

Pic focuses on how Williams’ tumultuous upbringing — complete with a scornful father, depression, conflicts about sexuality and watching his beloved sister institutionalized and lobotomized — fueled the conflict in such plays as “The Glass Menagerie” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Streetcar Named Desire.” One reason extra to anticipate this project – Ohoven claims that it resembles another picture he produced called, Capote.

However, before cracking open the Jack Daniels and horrible childhood, Hackford looks pegged to work on another playwright’s work. Neil Labute’s wrote an English language remake to Francois Truffaut’s “La Femme d’a cote” called The Woman Next Door. The project was set up at New Line – and might just be among the hundreds of project transferred over.