George Englund’s Marlon Brando Memoir Optioned for a Biopic
We’re pretty overdue for a Marlon Brando biopic, so, good news, Hollywood is cooking one up right now. It’ll be based on possibly the most in-depth examination of Brando’s life, the memoir written by late director and Brando’s close friend George Englund, The Way It’s Never Been Done Before.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the rights to the memoir have been optioned by Brian Oliver’s New Republic Pictures. Englund was one of Brando’s closest friends and confidants, the two of them having hit it off in the 1950s and when Englund directed Brando in the 1963 film The Ugly American. Brando is widely considered one of Hollywood’s best actors ever, and earned his first of eight Oscar nominations in 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire, won his first Oscar in 1954 for On the Waterfront, and his second for The Godfather in 1972. Brando died in 2004. George Englund died earlier this year.
About the reason he chose Englund’s biopic for his memoir, Oliver said:
George and Marlon's friendship spanned five decades and covered all the ups and downs in the actor's career and personal life. It makes for both an epic portrayal of the greatest actor ever to grace the silver screen and an intimate story of two men with an almost brotherly bond.
The film doesn’t yet have a director or a star, but they’re probably already searching around for who in Hollywood has the best “Hey STELLAAAAAAA” impression.