“Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is currently developing a film based on the life of West Side Story composer Leonard Bernstein for Paramount Pictures,” writes Adam Hetrick in Saturday’s (10/31) Playbill.com. “Details are scarce on the project, but Scorsese plans to direct and produce the film along with Fred Berner and Amy Durning. Bernstein, a towering figure in Broadway and classical music, composed On the Town, Peter Pan, Wonderful Town, Candide, and the musical theatre groundbreaker West Side Story.… His score to the 1954 film ‘On the Waterfront’ was Oscar-nominated. He was the long-time musical director and conductor of the New York Philharmonic. The Bernstein film emerged as one of several projects that were listed as in development as part of an extension between Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions and Paramount Pictures.… Screenwriter Josh Singer has written the screenplay for the Bernstein film. Singer is the co-writer of the new film ‘Spotlight,’ which centers on the Boston Globe’s shattering and Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé on sex abuse within the Catholic church…. A timeline for production on the Bernstein film was not indicated.”
Posted November 2, 2015
