bringing out the grateful dead
Martin Scorsese to direct a Grateful Dead movie starring Jonah Hill as Jerry Garcia
Fans of Martin Scorsese and a certain classic rock band have a lot to be grateful for today.
Scorsese is set to direct a Grateful Dead biopic for Apple, with Jonah Hill cast as frontman Jerry Garcia, Deadline reports.
This film will be another collaboration between the legendary director and Apple, which is also producing his upcoming Leonardo DiCaprio-starring crime movie Killers of the Flower Moon. The Grateful Dead movie script is reportedly set to be written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, known for their work on films like Ed Wood and the FX series American Crime Story. Hill is also set to serve as producer. He previously worked with Scorsese when he starred opposite DiCaprio in 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Apple has the rights to use the Grateful Dead's catalog, Deadline notes. Garcia died in 1995, but his daughter Trixie Garcia is set to produce, as are band members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann.
This won't be Scorsese's first time working on a Grateful Dead project, as he previously produced a 2017 documentary about the band called Long Strange Trip. This will, however, be Scorsese's first time dipping into the musical biopic genre. That genre has seen an uptick in popularity in recent years with films like the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody and Elton John biopic Rocketman, and tons more are in the works. It isn't clear when the Grateful Dead movie will debut, but for now, Scorsese fans can look forward to Killers of the Flower Moon, which doesn't have an official release date but may debut in 2022.