There have been plans to make a big screen biopic based on Playboy founder Hugh Hefner for almost a decade or more, and it looks like producer Jerry Weintraub has finally found a director to tackle Peter (The Queen) Morgan’s screenplay in Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin.
Dobkin, who followed Wedding Crashers with Fred Clause and The Change-Up and has the dramedy The Judge with Robert Downey Jr. coming up, is still in talks to helm the biopic about the legendary mogul who founded Playboy magazine in 1953 and turned it into a veritable empire with mens’ clubs all over the world, while at the same time leading an envious bachelor lifestyle into his 80s.
According to Variety, much of the film will take place during the ’70s, the same era Peter Morgan covered in his screenplay for Rush, Frost/Nixon and presumably the upcoming Freddie Mercury biopic as well. Warner Bros. picked up the project when Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment put it into turnaround after a number of years developing it.
Apparently, Dobkin’s The Judge, scheduled for release by Warner Bros. on October 10, 2014, has more of the dramatic elements of the planned biopic than his usual screwball comedies.
(Photo source: FayesVision / WENN.com)
