John Belushi’s life is going to be retold in a new biopic that’s coming together due to the efforts of both writer Steve Conrad (The Pursuit of Happyness) and director-producer Todd Phillips (The Hangover), says THR.com. Conrad is looking to write while Phillips would produce and possibly direct. For you youngsters out there, there was a previous film about the tragic comedian starring the future Vic Mackey made in 1989 titled Wired. That film was based on Bob Woodward’s 1986 book, Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi. Both the book and the film were publicly disowned by Belushi’s friends and family.
However, Belushi’s widow, Judith Belushi Pisano, penned her own version of John’s life in 2005 titled Belushi: A Biography. She will serve as an executive producer on the project. The article speculates about who could possibly portray Belushi, noting that Jack Black and Zach Galiafinikis, who co-starred in Phillips’ Hangover, are both probably too old (Belushi died at 33 from a drug overdose). Black was even once asked about portraying the role: “His life is not as funny as his work, and watching me do
an imitation of him doing his ‘Saturday Night Live’ bits won’t be
as funny as watching him do his ‘SNL’ bits.” Other names thrown out there include Jonah Hill (26), Seth
Rogen (28), Ethan Suplee (34) and Tyler Labine (32), who actually
appeared as Belushi in the 2005 NBC movie, Behind the Camera: The
Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy.
I’d be interested in seeing this, as Belushi was a volcanic talent whom many comedians are still aping nearly 30 years after his death.