Mick Jackson to direct film based on Temple Grandin's life
HBO's long-gestating Temple Grandin envision is moving forward, with Claire Danes in negotiations to asterisk and Mick Jackson go under to direct the biopic.
Grandin, nonpareil of the leading speakers on autism, overcame the limitations imposed by the disorder to become unitary of the top scientists in humane livestock handling.
High school was especially coarse for Grandin, who was called "tape recorder" by other kids because she repeated things over and over. She also was hypersensitive to all sorts of sensorial stimulation. She eventually calibrated with degrees from several universities, sledding on to write influential essays on animal welfare and designing humane slaughterhouses. Grandin appears regularly on the news program talk depict circuit and was the subject of a BBC documentary titled "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow" and Errol Morris' "First Person: Stairway to Heaven."
Danes testament play Grandin from her high schoolhouse years to her post-academic period.
Christopher Monger wrote the script, and an October start date in Austin is existence eyed.
Emily Gerson Saines, Gil Bellows, Anthony Edwards, Dante Di Loreto, Paul Lister and Allison Owen are exec producing, while Scott Ferguson serves as producer.
If everything falls into place, it will be a project nine years in the making for Saines, a one-time agent and straightaway manager-producer for whom this has been a passionateness project. Saines has seen several directors, including David O. Russell and Moises Kaufman, come and go.
"I made a commitment to Temple that I was going to make it and make it right," said Saines, who has a son with autism. "I ne'er pushed to get it made until now, because now we got it right.
"When I first brought this to HBO, and I started talking to Richard Plepler about the increasing (number of people with autism), he sour to me and aforementioned, 'Your numbers have got to be wrong, other than it would be an epidemic.' And I told him it is," she added.
Saines credited such past and present eXEC chiefs at HBO as Colin Callender, Keri Putnam and Jenny Sherwood for championing the project. "It's a testament to the material on which this is based that no one of all time gave up on this," she said.
Danes will next be seen star in Richard Linklater's "Me and Orson Welles," which premieres in September at the Toronto International Film Festival. She is repped by ICM and Signpost Management.
Jackson, repped by ICM, has credits that include "The Bodyguard," "Traffic" the television series and HBO's "Live From Baghdad."
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