Ridley Scott is making a film about the Bee Gees
How deep is your love for the Bee Gees? Hopefully, it’s pretty extensive. It will certainly come in handy when Ridley Scott’s film about the ’70s group is released, though that won’t be for a long time. Today it was announced that the man behind Alien and Blade Runner will be taking on a biopic about the Bee Gees, who you’ll know for songs like “How Deep Is Your Love”, “Stayin’ Alive” and “More Than a Woman”. While we don’t know much about the film yet, we do know that the script has already been penned by John Logan, who also wrote Gladiator, The Aviator, and Skyfall.
Handing Ridley Scott a film about a disco group might seem odd, but there is method in the madness. Scott is fresh off the set of his sequel to Gladiator, which, according to sources, is blowing people away during principal screenings. We’d also argue that there’s some campy brilliance in House of Gucci, his biopic of Patrizia Reggiani and the Gucci family. There was definitely something a little subversive going on in the editing room for this to come out of it.
Given the Bee Gees are up there in the disco hall of fame, it’s surprising that there hasn’t been a biopic about them up until now. Hollywood simply can’t get enough of the genre, and making a (often formulaic) film about a musical artist or group has become a sure fire way of earning you some critical praise, and the lead actor an Oscar nom. It might be that the Bee Gees didn’t get the silver screen treatment earlier on because they’ve had such a prominent presence in cinema without needing to be explicitly depicted. The use of their track “Stayin’ Alive” in Saturday Night Fever, for example, is iconic to say the least.
With a while to wait before Scott’s Bee Gees biopic materialises, we’d say it’s an opportune time to mull over your dream casting. Personally, we’re going to follow suit of one X user, and say this biopic should be round two for the ensemble cast in The Iron Claw. Zac Efron as Barry, Harris Dickinson as Robin, and Jeremy Allen White as Maurice. Like the Von Erich wrestlers, the Bee Gees are brothers, and like the Von Erichs, they’ve made some questionable hair choices. We might actually put money on this one.