The sort of fame that comes from appearing on reality television can be fleeting. Remember Puck, the filthy bike messenger who put his finger in Pedro’s peanut butter on MTV’s The Real World? No? Let’s go with something more recent. How about Richard Hatch, the manipulative nudist from CBS’ Survivor? Still no? Omarosa, that bitch from The Apprentice? William Hung, that Ricky Martin wannabe from American Idol? At one point these people were the darlings of popular culture, and now their names conjure up barely a glimmer of recognition.
Hopefully for Fox Searchlight the name Susan Boyle is recent enough that it’s still at the tips of everyone’s brains though, because Deadline Hollywood is reporting that they’ve just signed off on a deal that gives them the rights to her life story. It turns out that, in the time since her revelatory 2009 performance on Britain’s Got Talent, where she taught the world that even people who aren’t 16-year-old girls with hair extensions can sing, Boyle has been spending her time doing things like cutting albums and signing deals to have a stage musical about her life story made.
Said musical was called I Dreamed a Dream, it followed Boyle’s life all the way from her infancy, through her mundane existence in working class Scotland, to her sudden debut in the international spotlight, and it’s set to be the basis for the film that Fox Searchlight is looking to produce. Lucas Webb, who was responsible for getting the project together, says that he hopes it will be, “a sensitive and honest biopic infused with music.” You know what that means—it’s time to start dream casting which hot, young starlet is going to get to play Boyle on the big screen. Anne Hathaway is set to sing “I Dreamed a Dream” in the upcoming film adaptation of Les Misérables, is it possible that she could parlay that into landing the Boyle role? Mess up her hair a little bit, don’t let her wear makeup for the first half of the movie…it could be perfect!
I Dreamed a Dream the film version, or whatever it might be renamed, has yet to attach a writer or a director, but, according to Webb, it’s a project that’s “front and center” at the studio, so there should be developments soon.