I’m no psychic. I can’t speak to the dead. But I don’t need to be a ghost whisperer to realize that Bill Hicks probably wouldn’t have been wild about his life being turned into a biopic. The jury is still out, though, on how he might have felt about Russell Crowe playing him. If he had lived long enough to see Crowe in anything, that is.
But it’s happening, and according to Crowe himself he’s thinking about starring as the brilliant comedian and social commentator. “I have another project based on the life of comedian Bill
Hicks, which is going from treatment to draft stage with Kiwi
writer Mark Staufer,” Crowe tells the Sydney Morning Herald.
Staufer’s like Crowe’s buddy or something – the actor is producing the writer’s only other script, called Dolce’s Inferno, about a gossip columnist.
Again, I don’t think a Bill Hicks biopic is a good idea, and I might want to have someone who is, I don’t know, funny in the main role (I know Hick is sort of best remembered as angry, but he was fucking funny), but at least this isn’t some vanity project for a shitty comedian, a la Man on the Moon.
Thanks to those beautiful Dubliners at Flicks News for pointing out the story.