Scott Weiland Biopic in the Works Based on Memoir
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The up-and-down life and career of Scott Weiland, the Stone Temple Pilots singer who died in 2015, may become the subject of a film, as a script based on his memoir has been put into development under the title “Paper Heart.”
Dark Pictures and producer Orian Williams have picked up “Not Dead & Not for Sale,” the book Weiland wrote with author David Ritz, it was reported Monday by the Hollywood Reporter. The script is being written by Jennifer Erwin, one of Dark Pictures’ co-founders and a self-professed major fan of Stone Temple Pilots.
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“It’s an honor to have the trust to tell Scott’s story and the ability to portray the lesser known sides of him – the loving and tender man he was, the high school athlete he was, the melancholy soul he was and the legendary frontman that he will always be,” Erwin said in a statement.
Implicit among all those accolades about the late rocker is that he repeatedly made headlines over the year for the more troubled aspects of his life, which included well-known bouts with heroin before he cleaned up for some time later in his career. In December of 2015, the rocker — who’d also gone on to co-found another popular group, the all-star Velvet Revolver — was on tour with his latest outfit, Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts, when he died of what was declared to be a mixed drug toxicity, exacerbated by other health conditions.
“Scott was glamorous, complicated and wounded. His childhood had a big effect on his struggles with addiction,” Dark Pictures co-founder Anne Beagan said in a statement.
“We’ve been approached many times about Scott’s story,” David Vigliano, founder-CEO of Vigliano Associates, which handles Weiland’s estate, said in a statement to THR, “and when this team came to us with their vision for a film, it felt right.”
Williams told THR the filmmakers plan to be in contact “with those closest to Scott to get the details right,” and that they have access to previously unreleased music for the film.
Stone Temple Pilots’ 1993 debut album, “Core,” got the group off to a heady start, being certified for 8 million in U.S. album sales. Two years later, a 6x platinum followup, “Purple,” did nearly as well. After a long time apart, the group reunited in 2008 for a tour and released a swan song/comeback album in 2010.
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