Wouldn’t it be nice…to have a Brian Wilson biopic?

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Musician biopics are always hot commodities in Hollywood and another story based on the rise and fall and rise of a rock star is getting ready for the big screen treatment. Brain Wilson, the mastermind behind The Beach Boys, has sold his life rights to production company River Road who have hired Oscar-nominated writer Oren Moverman (THE MESSENGER) to pen his story.

Wilson is known as the driving force behind The Beach Boys and their unique sound. He constantly pushed the band, who started as a simple surf pop group, to artistic highs, including the classic “Pet Sounds” album. But his genius came at a price as his insatiable need for perfection and increasing conflicts with the rest of the band culminated in a mental collapse in the late-1960s. The singer spent the next three years holed up in his Malibu home sleeping, eating and taking drugs. (Wilson was later diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar disorder that explained both his genius and his eventual nervous breakdown.)

Moverman is no stranger to musician biopics, signing on last year to write a Kurt Cobain biopic. That project seems no closer to moving ahead than it was last year and it languishing in some development hell at Universal. The news of the film on Wilson doesn’t mention whether the project includes rights to all the Beach Boys music but considering Wilson was the primary songwriter, I’d imagine his rights come along with music rights.