Casting’s been confirmed for the lead players in two Jeff Buckley biopics currently in the works. Greetings From Tim Buckley will star Penn Badgley (Easy A, Gossip Girl) and chronicle the late singer’s early days, before his rise to minor fame. The other, as yet untitled project has Reeve Carney (The Tempest) starring, and will look at Buckley’s life and work. While Greetings doesn’t have rights to any Buckley songs, the untitled biopic has Jeff’s mother (and owner of his estate) as producer. One sounds like it may be worth watching and the other stars a cast member of Gossip Girl… Read more about Buckley, his music and films, after the jump.
The son of folk musician Tim Buckley, Jeff released his debut album Grace in 1994, to great critical acclaim. He’s most widely known for his hit cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” (see the music video below) which has played on The OC, House, Without A Trace and in a bunch of other popular shows and films. In 1997, at age 30, while he was working on his second album, Buckley went for a swim in the Mississippi river and tragically drowned.
Greetings from Tim Buckley will be directed by Dan Algrant (Naked in New York and some Sex and the City episodes) with Imogen Poots (Me and Orson Welles) to star alongside Badgley. According to The Playlist, Greetings will focus on Buckley’s breakthrough performance at a 1991 tribute concert for his father, the late Tim Buckley, and will include a romance between Buckley and a woman working at the concert. Presumably Poots is to play the love interest. The sound of this has me wincing; one of those bios about a musician which has none of their music in it… which may (fingers crossed) or may not go straight to TV.
On the other hand, the untitled project from Jake Scott (Welcome to the Rileys) could be promising. Son of Ridley Scott and primarily a director of music videos, this will be Jake’s third feature film. 28 year old Reeve Carney, who’s best known for his Peter-Parker-Spider-Man in the Broadway show Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, is, I think, a lot more Buckley-esque than Badgley. But the proof will be in the pudding.
The films won’t be in direct competition as Greetings is set to be released in 2012 and Scott’s untitled film is not out until 2013. Good things take time and all that.
Thoughts? Feelings? After watching the music video, does anyone else think James Franco would have been a good choice to play Buckley?
