Producer Stephanie Allain To Co-Write Ballet Dancer Misty Copeland BiopicPosted by Wilson Morales
August 14, 2014
Source: Deadline
Deadline is reporting that New Line has optioned the rights to do a biopic on ballet prodigy Misty Copeland, who fought against the odds to become the only the second African-American female soloist to dance with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre.
Based on Copeland’s bestselling memoir Life In Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, the film will be scripted by Stephanie Allain and Lenore Kletter.
Allain is a well-known producer of many films including Hustle & Flow, Something New, Black Snake Moan, Peeples and the upcoming films, Justin Simien’s Dear White People and Gina Prince Bythewood’s Beyond The Lights. Kletter is a screenwriter whose credits include the Lifetime movie “(True) Confessions of a Go-Go-Girl”.
The sites states that the film will chronicle Copeland’s striking rise to dance stardom. The late bloomer began training in ballet at age 13 while living in a welfare motel with her mother and siblings, learning so quickly she was dancing en pointe within months. She went from lessons at the local Boys & Girls Club to living part-time with a sponsor family while attending dance school. But as her ballet career escalated, so did a bitter custody battle between her mother and her host family.
Copeland has performed with Prince at Madison Square Garden, serves on President Obama’s fitness council, and appeared as a guest judge this season on Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance.
Next month she will make history again as the first African-American ballerina to dance lead in ABT’s Swan Lake. She co-wrote her memoir Life In Motion with author Charisse Jones, which burned up the NYT bestseller list after hitting shelves in March, and will work with producers as a consultant.
The film will focus on Copeland from age 13 to late teens, and filmmakers will be searching for a multi-talented young performer with dance training to play the prima ballerina. The project also has meaty roles for two actresses to play Copeland’s mother and mentor.
Offspring Entertainment’s Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot alongside Phil Sandhaus will serve as producers; Dave Neustadter and Andrea Johnston are executive producers.
