Martin Scorsese will direct a Grateful Dead biopic for Apple, with Jonah Hill set to star as the beloved band’s iconic lead singer, Jerry Garcia, Deadline reports.
American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski will pen the script. Hill will produce the film alongside Scorsese and Rick Yorn, while the band’s surviving members will executive produce.
While it hasn’t yet been announced what aspect of Garcia and his band will be chronicled in the film, there’s plenty of material to mine from. The Dead formed in 1965 San Francisco, just as multiple counter-culture movements were bubbling into the mainstream, and psychedelics took hold of the music world and beyond. If that means two hours of Jonah Hill tripping on acid, sign us up.
The film will mark the second time Hill and Scorsese have worked together, the first being The Wolf of Wall Street back in 2013. Hill earned an Oscar nod for that performance, and has made no secret about his reverence for Scorsese. When talking to Vulture back in 2018 about directing his own film, Mid90s, Hill talked about how the legendary director inspired him by the way he could effortlessly solve problems.
“That’s some combination of genius and experience,” Hill said. “It’s so awe-inspiring that you don’t even aspire to it.”
But before he dons the iconic Garci beard, Hill will appear in Netflix’s upcoming film Don’t Look Up alongside a stacked cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry.
The movie’s writer/director Adam McKay told the Los Angeles Times that the story is rooted in the current political and cultural climate.
“We were scouting [locations to film] in Boston, and I’m an NBA fan, so I was watching the Jazz game [on March 11, 2020] and the referees said the game was canceled for COVID,” he explained. “We went home, and then it was like six months of just [being] at home like everyone. … The whole time, I’m like, ‘Do you still make this movie? Like, did the movie just happen in reality?’”
Don’t Look Up is set to hit Netflix on Dec. 10.
