Ridley Scott To Direct Paramount’s Bee Gees Movie From GK Films

Justin Kroll
·3 min read

EXCLUSIVE: With its movie Bob Marley: One Love now in theaters, Paramount Pictures is moving fast on another high-profile biopic on a popular music group and looks to have found an A-list director to lead the project. While a deal isn’t done, sources tell Deadline that Ridley Scott is in negotiations to direct the studio’s untitled Bee Gees movie. Scott will produce alongside producing partner Michael Pruss of Scott Free, Graham King through his GK Films banner and Stacey Snider.

Paramount is distributing the film worldwide, with Amblin and Sister having the right to co-finance. Barry Gibb is executive producing. John Logan wrote the script.

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While this isn’t the typical film Scott is known for, several factors came into play that led to the studio pursuing him, and the Oscar-nominated director agreeing to come aboard. First, Scott recently wrapped production on the sequel to his smash hit Gladiator and, according to sources, early footage has blown execs away. He is known for finding his follow-up projects quickly, and once production wrapped last month the studio was quick to get the latest draft of the Bee Gees film in front before he found that next movie.

As for Scott, the director has a long-standing link to the legendary group going back to when he was trying to launch his directing career. That connection is the group’s longtime manager at the time Robert Stigwood, the music mogul who had been managing the group since the 1960s and played a big part in its resurgence in the ’70s during the disco era while at the same time getting into the movie producing business. Stigwood would put Scott on the medieval film Castle Accident that would star the band’s three brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice. Ultimately the film never came together (Scott would go on to direct The Duelist instead), but that desire to tell some sort of story with the group remained, and now nearly 50 years later Scott has that chance.

This also marks a reunion for Scott and Logan, who worked together on Gladiator and Alien: Covenant. Logan and King, meanwhile, worked together on Rango, The Aviator and the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic Michael.

Paramount got life rights to the Gibb family estate in 2019 as well as rights to the band’s classic songs in a movie that could very well follow the template of the Oscar Best Picture-nominated Bohemian Rhapsody.

The Bee Gees had worldwide sales of more than 220 million records, establishing the band as one of the biggest-selling groups of all time. While Barry, Robin and Maurice first began performing together in the late 1950s focused on folk and soft rock, their popularity mushroomed after they wrote songs for Saturday Night Fever that fueled disco’s popularity and led to one of the top-selling albums ever; the work earned them five Grammys including Album of the Year.

Even though the success made them famous, rich and an indelible part of the ’70s zeitgeist, their position as the symbol of disco put them on their heels when there was an eventual backlash to the whole polyester vibe.

When Maurice Gibb died suddenly in January 2003 at age 53, Barry and Robin retired the group’s name before reforming in 2009. Robin died three years later at 62.

Up next for Scott is that Gladiator sequel, which is set to bow November 22 and stars Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal.

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